


Circum Erotico

by deceptivemirror



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 11:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15266835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deceptivemirror/pseuds/deceptivemirror
Summary: A mysterious string of random deaths plague several cities across the United States, and Sam and Dean are called to investigate.  After some sleuthing, they discover all the deaths occur at the times Circum Erotico, a traveling troupe of sexy, daring performers, are in town, and that the murders appear to have been perpetrated by a demon.The plan itself is flawless.  Infiltrate the erotic show, find the culprit, exorcise, burn, and be on their way.  The execution...is less than flawless.Dean's task is to make handling weaponry look sexy, and Sam becomes a strongman for suggestive dances and acts.  Sooner or later, they'll stumble on the murderer...if the crowds hungry for more of their skin don't devour them first.Written for the SPN-J2 BB of 2018.





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

 

_Show Low, Arizona, United States_

_Population: 11,096 (as of 2016)_

  


Early morning darkness wrapped around the person walking down the street, almost as if greeting an old friend.  The person moved along, nimbly avoiding the streetlights of the thoroughfare, even though no one was out, or awake, to see.  When out of the range of light sources, the person appeared to be nothing more than a darker spot among the shadows.

 

Soft cooing from flying birds, the occasional squeak of a hunting bat, and the scratch of tires were the only things interrupting the quiet.  The person found the silence to be enjoyable, so unlike the day-to-day sounds of honking car horns, loud music, and the buzz of too many conversations at once.

 

The cool breeze rustled a stack of papers the person held securely in the crook of an arm.  With a sigh, the person finally stepped into the circle of light a street-lamp cast, resolving into a tall figure wearing a dark peacoat and a knit beanie, both stormcloud grey.  The collar of the coat was turned up against the chill, because even if the days were warm, the night was far cooler.

 

Reaching into one large pocket, the person brought out a staple gun, and with quick movements, took a page from the stack in one arm and stapled it to the wooden pole.  The sound of the staples firing into the wood was loud in the otherwise silent evening, but didn’t carry far enough to disturb anyone’s rest.

 

The person melted into the shadows once again, the lurid colors of the poster on the pole the only evidence that someone had been there.  The poster itself remained, showing a delicately drawn figure posing against a wall, holding a sword up to a lush-looking mouth.

 

“If you’re ready to come full circle,” read the poster, “come to Circum Erotico.”


	2. Chapter One

**CHAPTER ONE**

 

_Salt Lake City, Utah_

_Population (as of 2016): 193,744_

 

“Agent Galli, and this is my partner, Agent Frey.  We’ve come to see the crime scene.”

 

Dean, wearing his second-best suit with a green tie, whipped out his FBI ID to show it to the police officer.  The officer was an older white man, and looked to be losing the battle against bone and hair loss. After the usual scrutiny, the officer nodded, a sign for Dean to casually wrist-flip the fake ID and tuck it back inside his jacket pocket.  He felt Sam doing the same thing in unison with him, more than he saw it. They’d been at this a long time.

 

Maybe too long.

 

“Glad you could make it so quickly, Agents,” the balding police officer, slightly shorter than Dean, stated.  Coughing a little into his fist, he offered it out to shake. Dean made absolutely no attempt to meet that hand with his own, and after an awkward moment, the officer wiped his hand on his slacks leg and had the decency to look sheepish.

 

Dean resisted his impulse to sigh.  He was getting older, dammit, and didn’t want more germ exposure than he had to take.

 

Wordlessly, Sam dug in a pocket, then held out a small bottle of hand sanitizer to the officer.  The officer took some of the gel Sam squeezed out, rubbed his hands dry, then once again held a hand out to Dean, who accepted.

 

“Officer Colin Warner,” the officer said.  “I’m one of the first responders, and honestly, I’m glad the FBI is taking an interest in this case.  I don’t think we’re equipped right to handle a serial killer.”

 

“There’s been more than one murder like this?” Sam inquired innocently, as if they were new to the case.  Dean turned and gave Sam a slight nod of approval.

 

“This here’s the fourth one,” sighed Officer Warner.  He gestured ahead, inviting them to follow.

 

Dean let out a breath as he let Sam, in all his gigantor glory, take the lead.  He didn’t feel like trying to jog a little to take point, like he normally would.  He was also honest enough with himself to admit that he was feeling decidedly cranky.  

 

They had stayed overnight in a city called Provo, and the second they’d taken up residence in the room, everything had gone wrong.  There’d been a ton of noisy assholes in the hotel parking lot, which had kept them both from sleeping. After an initial request for peace had gone ignored, they’d had to _politely_ tell the people to quiet down.  That had, predictably, resulted in several unconscious bodies taking up residence in a nearby dumpster.  

 

Adding insult to injury (in Dean’s mind), the hotel’s coffee maker had broken before dawn, apparently not up to the demands of the clientele crazy enough to get up at that hour, and despite Sam’s assurances that the hotel would have a continental breakfast, there had been nothing on offer.  After trying and failing to find some place that could get them some food and a caffeine fix, they had given up and hit the road.

 

Dean hadn’t been able to go without breakfast without getting acid reflux for years, and the acid had started to do its work in souring his stomach.

 

To cap off the shitty morning, a drive that should have taken less than an hour somehow managed to turn into two.  Some joyriding idiot, Dean and Sam had found out, had thought that cutting off a semi-truck hauling freight on the road and then slamming on their brakes was a good idea.  Naturally, the person stupid enough to do that hadn’t lived long enough to regret the error.

 

Dean would have tried to feel sorry for the dead idiot, but really, anyone dumb enough to make a semi try to stop on a dime deserved what they got.

 

They _did_ make sure to surreptitiously stop long enough to throw salt on the fire. They had _both_ learned their lesson from the last time they’d passed an accident.

 

It wasn’t sweetening his mood any, but Dean was glad they hadn’t eaten before coming to inspect the body.  Even after years doing this, some of the shit they had seen could still make them puke.

 

The hunter network had pointed this case out to them for potential interest, and they had followed the trail of bodies for three weeks across four states.  Salt Lake City was the latest location where people had all been murdered in similar ways.

 

The first murders had been in Alabama, where two people had been found dead.  They were both men, and hadn’t had a connection that any of the news outlets had cared to inform the public about.  They had been murdered on different days and at different times.

 

The second string of murders had had a shocking body count of five, and was located in Murphy, North Carolina.  Two cities with several different bodies, different times of death, and different people, though both towns appeared to have had a predilection for angry, stupid-looking guys wearing khakis and waving tiki torches, which had been put in the news almost as an afterthought.  It was then that a FBI case had been started in order to catch what looked to be a serial killer, since all of the murders had a similar modus operandi. No one had been called in for questioning. No fingerprints of any kind had been found at the crime scenes.

 

Sam and Dean had just come from the site of the third case, some bullshit tiny town in Arizona ( _Show Low, whispered the Sam-voice in Dean’s head; you know it was Show Low, stop trying to forget details)_ where only one person had showed up dead.  

 

Without Dean having to ask, Sam had already succeeded in hacking the FBI database, and had all the information he needed on all the dead bodies. That was a good thing, Dean knew, but they hadn’t had time to do more than print them out before they had to rush to the next scene of the crime.

 

In passing, Dean noted the officer seemed a little reluctant about going to the crime scene.  Looking up, he understood. The crime scene was the Salt Lake Temple, the biggest Mormon church in the United States, if not the world.

 

Dean winced.  He didn’t really like dealing with the religious crowd, because frankly, some of them scared him more than the monsters they killed.  He never understood how some of the humans who came out of these churches could be _more_ evil than the demons they exorcised, but it was true.  Holiness, in Dean’s experience, didn’t seem to translate to being a good person.

 

With a deep, bracing breath of fresh air, Dean walked into the church after the officer, Sam a step or so ahead.  As they entered, Dean found he was grateful for that last breath, because his next one choked him with the smell of decomposition and sulfur.

 

Dean’s eyes unerringly (and a little unwillingly) drew his attention to the body.  It was a man; that much was fairly obvious, since there wasn’t a stitch of clothing to be seen on the body.  A sickly orange-red pentagram surrounded the corpse, drawn with eldritch symbols Dean was familiar with, on a bone-deep level.  The body was arrayed to precisely reverse the pentagram underneath it.

 

This was all familiar to Dean, both from witnessing a few of the crime scene photos, and from seeing it himself.  What he was _not_ prepared for was seeing the severed stump of the man’s penis shoved into a mouth frozen open in a rictus of horrified screams.

 

Or for that one wound to be the only visible one on the victim’s body.

 

A cough from Officer Warner drew Dean’s horrified gaze away from the body.  The officer looked apologetic. “Damn awful for a man to see,” he said sympathetically.  “Can tell you I dang near ran away with my hands covering my bits, first time I came in here.”

 

Part of Dean wondered at the lack of harder language coming from the officer’s mouth, but he definitely understood the desire to cover his junk.  Just _looking_ at the way the guy’s dick wasn’t anywhere it was supposed to be made his own equipment try and climb back up into his abdomen.

 

“Were there any security tapes we could review from around the time of the victim’s death?”  Sam asked politely. Dean envied him the professional tone. He was too busy trying to subtly reassure himself his dick was still attached to make coherent commentary, or ask some of the smart questions.

 

“Medical examiner’s going to take the body and give us a more accurate time of death,” Warner answered easily.  Dean guessed the officer had been somewhat desensitized to the way the man in the pentagram _must_ have died.  “He’s saying it was sometime around one this morning, but we can’t be too sure of anything in this case.”

 

“Were the other victims similarly...maimed?” Dean asked, when he found his voice.

 

“Nah, this fellow here’s the only one who died this way,” Warner replied.  “Not to say that the other deaths were less disturbin’ or anything, but this is the only one that had the, well, mutilation.”

 

“Do we know this guy’s name?”  Dean wondered.

 

“No wallet was found,” Warner stated.  “When we found the body earlier today, we conducted a search around the parts of the premises we had access to, but--”

 

“Hold on,” Sam interrupted, “but what do you mean, ‘parts you had access to?’”

 

“I guess you two aren’t from here,” Warner said slowly.  Dean privately thought that was the understatement of the century.  “Well, this here’s the Mormon temple. The holiest of holy. Only those of us police officers that have a temple recommend can get in there.”

 

“And that is…?”  Dean drawled.

 

“You gotta be a member of the Church and do a lot of stuff to get one,” Warner sighed.  “I don’t think there’s a single person on our force who has one, so we’re having to call in someone else to do it.”

 

“Can’t you get a warrant?” Sam demanded.  “Someone _did_ die here, after all.  There’s probable cause to search the premises.”

 

“Sure, _legally_ , we could,” Warner retorted, looking a little angry, “but then we’d have the majority of the community here getting mad on television, and invading the police station, demanding to know why we desecrated the temple.”

 

“Death isn’t desecration enough?”  Dean grumbled in irritation, then relented with a sigh.  “Fine. Get the guy with the temple recommend here as fast as you can.”

 

“Won’t be more than a few hours, if that,” was the less-than-ideal response.  “Maybe you’ll want to get set up at your hotel and stuff, and I’ll call you when the temple recommend person gets here.”

 

Sensing Dean’s rapidly decreasing patience, since Dean wasn’t making any attempts to hide it, Sam stepped forward and provided their contact phone number.  Best brother _ever._

 

They both nodded polite good-byes to the officer, and it wasn’t until they got back into the Impala that Sam let out a groan.

 

“How many dead bodies do we have?”  Sam complained. “How many?!”

 

“So far, I think about twelve, counting the ones in this case,” Dean sighed.  “We’re not getting around fast enough to stop anything.”

 

“To say nothing of the fact that we’re not getting the usual signs of demon activity.”  Sam frowned and rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. “It could be that we’ve never been in the area, or they’re being more subtle than usual,” he said after a long pause.  “If they’re being their usual arrogant selves, it’s easy to spot them.”

 

“Organized, subtle demons don’t make me happy,” Dean grumbled.  

 

“They don’t make me jump for joy either,” Sam replied wryly.  “Right now, what we need to focus on is how they’re choosing their victims, why they’re choosing their victims--”

 

“--and figuring out what’s luring these people away from relative safety,” Dean finished for him with a sigh.  “And why these are all happening in different cities.”

 

 

Sam thought Dean looked tired.

 

He wasn’t trying to step on Dean’s toes, but after a few too-long blinks while on the road, he nearly suggested Dean pull over to let him drive.  Each time that happened, Dean would shake his head aggressively, as if he could headbutt the tiredness away, and keep going.

 

When Sam had finally gotten the nerve up to ask Dean to pull over, Dean signaled a right, and drove the car into a rest stop.  After parking and shutting the car down, Dean leaned his head back on the seat.

 

“Sammy, I’m gonna take a ten minute nap, before we get to some kind of hotel-heavy area,” he said.  

 

“Sounds good, Dean,” Sam said, carefully trying not to sound relieved.  “A bit of shut-eye can’t hurt.”

 

Dean didn’t respond, but Sam did see his eyes shut.  Moments later, soft snores were coming out of Dean’s mouth.

 

Sam hadn’t realized Dean was _that_ tired.  It normally took longer for him to drop off.  Dean often joked that, lately, it took a goat sacrifice at a full moon for him to fall asleep at all these days.

 

Since Dean’s internal clock would wake him in precisely ten minutes (and someday, Sam _had_ to learn how Dean could just snap awake without an alarm), Sam didn’t bother reaching for the laptop to examine the written research.  Instead, he pored over the details in his mind, trying to establish a timeline for later use.

 

Alabama, North Carolina, Arizona, and now Utah.  Geographically far apart, but with eerily similar crime scenes.  His fingers itched for his laptop, but there wasn’t enough time to look over the information before they’d be off again.  Pentagrams, dead bodies, nudity.

 

This latest murder seemed odd to Sam.  He knew he would need to look at the notes again to be sure, and re-examine the crime scene photos, but something about this one was different.  He didn’t know how or why it was, but it was nagging at him.

 

Sam had resolved to examine the newspapers in the days leading up to all the deaths when he heard Dean’s breathing change from slow and deep to slightly faster and shallower.  He didn’t move or do anything until he saw Dean stretch and open his eyes. Any kind of movement before then would send Dean moving toward the noise with a knife out.

 

Come to think of it, Sam never knew where Dean hid some of his knives….

 

A soft grunt from Dean had Sam glancing out of the corner of his eye.  Dean looked rumpled, but more rested than he had been. “Mmm, sorry ‘bout that, Sammy,” he said softly, sleep-growl coloring his words.  “Better, though.”

 

“You don’t have to apologize,” Sam replied just as quietly.  “We’ll be here for a while, so you can take all the time you need to rest up.”

 

“I’ll be happier just being away from that stupid hotel full of noisy assholes we were in,” Dean grumbled, and Sam nodded agreement.  “See if you can find us somewhere here that’s nicer than that shithole.”

 

Sam privately thought that a literal shithole would have been better to sleep in than their now-former hotel, but he kept that thought to himself.

 

He tapped on his phone for a few minutes, finding that the Metropolitan Inn was the cheapest option, then programmed the address into the GPS. “Anytime you’re ready, we can grab a room there.  I think they’ll have a vacancy.”

 

Instead of answers, Dean turned the Impala on, with the sudden low growl subsiding into a rumbling purr, and backed out.  Twenty minutes or so later, they were at their hotel.

 

The woman behind the counter, as a rarity, didn’t try to make some kind of sly innuendo when Dean asked for a room with two beds (though Sam did note in passing that she did mention the beds were queens).  Sam hadn’t spent much time in Utah, but this was a point in its favor.

 

Sam briefly wondered what had happened to their previous lives, when they squatted at random empty houses instead of paying with fake credit cards at hotels, but figured this was better.  Hot water and laundry facilities on-site made nearly _everything_ better.

 

The room was blessedly quiet, the sheets were clean, and the hotel itself was in a fairly decent area, so it wasn’t like they were going to be subjected to car engines being revved all night.

 

Sam thought he was becoming more delicate in his old age.

 

“Could you order some food in for us?” He asked Dean.  “I want to cross-reference the newspapers, see if we could find demon-signs, or something all these places had in common.”

 

“Sure thing, Sam,” Dean said, as Sam unpacked his bag and pulled out his laptop.  “I’ll handle the grub.”


	3. Chapter Two

**CHAPTER TWO**

 

Dean was pretty sure Sam had forgotten he was even here.

 

The laptop keys clicked constantly as Sam searched, did the whatsit with the whoozit, and generally made the tiny computer whine as it was put through its paces.  Every so often, Sam would stop banging on the keyboard long enough to whip open a pad of paper and jot something down with a pen.

 

When Sam connected the laptop to the tiny printer they carried around for just this kind of occasion, Dean went back to the Impala, opened the “public consumption” part of their trunk (wouldn’t do for some random person passing by to see all the weaponry in the “private consumption” part), and pulled out a corkboard.  He dug around a bit to find the push-pin box, and stuck it into his pocket after he found it.

 

Dean came back to the hotel room and found that Sam had barely moved from the position on the bed he had claimed, except to loosen his red tie and unbutton the first few buttons of his shirt.  The carefully-styled hair, previously FBI-chic, was now tousled and out of place, proof that Sam had forgotten that he had pomade in his hair and had run fingers through it anyway.

 

After placing the board and the box of pushpins on the bed, Dean made sure the portable printer had enough paper, then dug in his bag for literally any clothing that wasn’t the monkey suit he was wearing.  Dean found himself a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt, and gratefully stripped off the suit to put the comfortable clothes on.

 

Using the Google function on his phone, Dean found a pizza place that would deliver, and ordered two pizzas with bottled water for delivery.  He got himself a meat pizza with some veggies (apparently the first thing to go as a person aged was their digestive system, which Dean silently cursed), and a vegetarian pizza for Sam.

 

“Thirty minutes to food,” Dean announced, which made Sam jump a little.  He resisted the urge to laugh at his little brother for forgetting the world around him.  “Get into something more comfortable. You’ll wrinkle the pants, and you hate ironing.”

 

Sam groaned, but did as he was told.

 

Dean grinned, though he made damn sure his back was to Sam when he did it.  Mr. Domestic Sam, who used to want nothing but a so-called normal life, could barely boil water, hated ironing, and still thought it was okay to wash reds with whites in the  _ same wash _ .

 

There were reasons why Dean still did his little brother’s laundry, even though Sam was a grown-ass adult, and bigger than most redwoods.  One of those reasons was that he didn’t want to be seen walking around with Sam, knowing that Sam’s socks and boxers were stained with lurid, splotchy pink.

 

Since Sam was still occupied chasing leads down virtual rabbit holes, Dean took up some of the already-printed documentation from the previous related cases.  

 

There were two cases in Alabama, and he had copies of the coroner’s reports.  He settled in to read, though they weren’t exactly what he’d consider good pre-dinner reading.

 

Times of death for the deceased, Dean noted, were very close together.  Since forensic pathology hadn’t yet gotten to the point where someone could pinpoint the exact moment of death, Dean figured that they had been killed one after the other.  Dean saw that each crime scene was strangely clean, which was a direct deviation from any kind of normal murder. Each site had  _ only _ had DNA belonging to the victim.  It was as if no one had murdered them.

 

Dean had first asked the coroner in Alabama what the pentagrams had been made out of, which had gotten him a strange expression, but she later confirmed the pentagrams had been drawn using paint.  There had been a very slight color difference between the reds, so Dean suspected the killer, whoever they were, wasn’t too particular about the paint color as long as it looked like blood.

 

Neither victim, the coroner’s reports confirmed, had been exsanguinated (Dean sighed at the language; it would have been way shorter if they just said “bled out”).  Cause of death was different as well. One of the people had been knifed in the gut, with the knife still there (no fingerprints on the knife, which made Dean grumble angrily to himself), and the other had been shot in the face.  

 

Sulphur had been found in both sites.  That was interesting. A demon wouldn’t need paint, and sulphur usually showed up wherever they went.  Dean came to the uncomfortable realization, one he knew he should have come to sooner, that it was possible they were dealing with a human  _ and _ a demon, working together.

 

Dean still hadn’t figured out what the two dead people had had in common by the time the delivery person knocked on the door.  Dean tucked a gun into the back of his pants (bad form, he knew, but he’d need both to hold the pizza anyway), checked the peep-hole, and saw what appeared to be a normal-looking teenager holding a bag.

 

“Just a second,” he called softly, trying to make himself sound further from the door than he actually was, and turned to Sam.  Sam had looked up at the knock, and without asking, tossed Dean a small container of salt. Dean cursed softly, realizing they’d mutually forgotten to guard the door, but laid a track out of range of the door’s radius, so he’d be able to jump backward to a safe spot.

 

Stepping carefully over the line, he unlocked and opened the door.  The teenager looked gangly and awkward, which Dean considered normal for a teen’s first job, but the kid was dressed way nicer than any delivery kid Dean had ever seen.  Dean didn’t really think a pizza delivery warranted someone wearing a  _ tie, _ but then again, he didn’t live here, so couldn’t pass judgment.  

 

Dean paid, giving the kid a nice tip, and carried the pizza boxes back into the hotel room.  Sam came over and took his pizza, then got back onto the bed with it. Dean tossed him his water bottle as soon as he got settled.

 

Fuck manners.  They were grown men, and they could eat where they wanted.

 

Dean grabbed some napkins so he wouldn’t grease up the paperwork, took the rest of the coroner’s reports to the bed with him and the pizza, and kept reading.  He  _ did _ make sure that the pictures weren’t visible while he ate.  Even he got delicate sometimes.

 

“Hey, Sam,” he said, around a mouthful of pizza.

 

“Dude, chew with your damn mouth closed,” Sam replied snottily.

 

“Got a question,” Dean mumbled, though it came out sounding more like “gnyaught a gwestin.”

 

“Swallow first,  _ then _ ask, Dean,” sighed Sam.  “You’re not  _ five _ .”

 

Dean flipped Sam the bird, as he chewed with his mouth open in Sam’s general direction.  The grossed-out face was  _ completely _ worth it.

 

After he swallowed, Dean tried again.  “Do we have reports of the last movements of all the victims?”

 

Sam clicked a few keys (after a pretty good glare;  _ damn _ , could Sam turn on the high-disgust beams), and after a few minutes, nodded.  “Looks like the police had managed to talk to the victims’ families and friends,” Sam murmured, sounding distracted.  “There’s way too much information here for me to read on this screen, so I’m gonna print the stuff.”

 

“Technology just isn’t as good as pen and paper sometimes, Sammy,” Dean said, just to watch Sam twitch.  This was an old argument between them, about what methods for grunt work ( _ ‘detective work,” Sam’s voice said in his head _ ) were the most effective.

 

“Good luck lugging all that paper around when you don’t need it,” Sam retorted, just as Dean knew he would.  “If we carried every single piece of information that we gathered on paper, the Impala’s suspension would be wrecked.”

 

“We have all the old lore books,” Dean reminded him.  “They don’t strain anything.”

 

“And if we carried the entire library with us in book form, we wouldn’t have room to sit in the car,” Sam retorted, over the sound of the printer whirring.  Sam had to add some paper halfway through, but eventually they had a stack of papers about half an inch thick.

 

Dean had to concede Sam’s point, but made sure to stick his tongue out, on principle, after Sam had sorted the papers by respective personal timeline and handed him some of them.

 

Dean got up and grabbed two highlighters from his bag, and tossed one to Sam.  Somehow, Sam caught it without looking. It was a talent Dean had never acquired for himself, and it made him a little jealous.

 

Getting as comfortable as he could, Dean started to read again, grateful that at least he didn’t have to navigate gut-churning images this time.

 

None of the victims knew each other, Dean noted, which was a little surprising.  If they had known each other, it would have made tracking their movements a little easier.  By the time Sam and Dean had managed to get out to the crime scenes, most of the backtracking through the victims’ last moments had been completed.  They hadn’t had a chance to interview the victims’ loved ones, though they did have contact information, in case they needed something else.

 

Dean sighed and highlighted bigger meeting places, which were ideal for ushering a victim away without anyone noticing.  It was funny, that areas with less crowding drew more attention. It was how Dean would have done it, though he definitely wasn’t anything like whoever killed these people, thank fuck.  

 

Criminal profiling wasn’t that different from tracking monsters.  Only the species was different.

 

After finishing with one victim’s packet, Dean set it aside and gave the next one the same treatment.  He highlighted, almost without thinking, the common words leaping out at him. Church, circus, work, church again…

 

Wait a second.  Dean blinked and looked at the paper again.  The first victim had also been to a circus before their death.

 

He picked up and quickly scanned the next victim, one Charity Davis, and lo and behold, she had also been to a circus prior to death.  Dean didn’t know too much about circuses, but he knew that it’d be weird if there were more than two in town. He didn’t think the victims had been there the same day, but it was more of a lead than they had had before.

 

“Yo, Sam,” Dean said, squinting a little.  He realized it had somehow gotten dark while they were reading, and turned on one of the bedside lamps.  The sudden brightness made him wince. “Think I’ve got something.”

 

“Yeah?” Sam asked, sounding distracted.

 

“Three of the victims went to a circus before they ate it,” Dean explained.  “I haven’t gotten through the rest of the packets yet, but I’m willing to bet that everyone had paid that place a visit.”

 

“Two’s coincidence--” Sam started to say.

 

“--but three’s a conspiracy,” Dean finished.

 

They both bent back over the papers with a will, determined to find out if Dean’s hunch was right.  Dean quickly looked over the other people he had, and noted that they had all told someone close to them that they were going to go to the circus.

 

Events like this jumped out at investigators; Dean knew it, and he knew that Sam knew it.  Church was a far more common communal pastime than most kinds of entertainment events. To find out all the victims, though they didn’t know each other personally, had all been to a place out of the ordinary, within days of each other, was statistically very unlikely.

 

Dean, though, would never say that phrase out loud.  Sam would probably die from shock if he said words that had more than two syllables.

 

“They’ve all been to church, but this circus was also somewhere they’d all gone,” Sam said, running a hand through his hair.  He shortly made a sound of disgust and got up, heading for the restroom. Dean suppressed a snicker. He had seen Sam forget he’d been eating with his hands, then run them through his hair, way too often.  He let the laughter out as soon as he heard the sound of running water.

 

“Do we know the name of the circus?” Dean asked loudly, to be heard over the sink.

 

“No, but I’ll look it up when I’m done,” Sam yelled back.

 


	4. Chapter Three

**CHAPTER THREE**

 

Dean put down his phone with a sigh, belatedly remembering that he had to hit the “end” button.  “Dammit, why don’t any of these people remember the name of this damn circus?”

 

“Maybe because they didn’t _go_ to it, Dean,” Sam said, not even bothering to sugarcoat things.  “I don’t even know if any of the people who went and turned up dead had tickets in their possession.”

 

“Yeah, that’d make things way too easy,” Dean grumbled, scrubbing at his face with his hands.

 

The previous night had passed without incident.  Dean had further refined the places where the dead people may have interacted.  The church thing proved to be the false trail that Sam had suspected; there were just too many churches in all the cities to see if any of the victims had potentially shared a congregation, much less knew each other.  The Salt Lake City victims, notably, had all been in the same church at the same time (and one of them had been found dead in the Temple), but it was such a massive gathering that it would have been nearly impossible for them to have interacted.  Further, the temple recommend person had been able, by some miracle, to pull the attendance roster for the church sermons for the past few weeks, and he had assured Sam that the victims weren’t related, and didn’t seem to know each other.

 

Sam, briefly, wondered why a church in this modern era would have family records on premises, then decided there were some things he _really_ didn’t want or need to know.

 

It was almost like being back to square one, but they were about to get to square two.  Sam could _feel_ it.

 

It was bright and early the next day.  Dean had coffee and a bagel, and Sam had bran cereal.  All was about as right with the world as it could potentially get, but Sam knew he’d feel better, and have fewer gut cramps, if he could just figure out what this circus was called.

 

Sam _hated_ aging.  When he was younger, he could eat anything, drink anything, and his body was happy.  Lack of sleep also hadn’t been a problem; he’d always felt rested, full eight hours or up all night.  Now that he was older (and hopefully wiser), he needed more sleep, and some foods just didn’t sit as well with him anymore.  Dean could tease him unmercifully about not being able to stomach greasy, fried food, and about all his salads, but at least Sam could go to the bathroom and not make wounded animal noises when he had to take a shit.

 

Soon as Sam could figure out how to get his brother to do it, he was taking Dean to get a colonoscopy.  He knew it wasn’t just angel teleportation that kept Dean from having regular bowel movements.

 

“Hey, Dean, how about we see if there are any circuses in town right now?”  Sam felt fairly confident in this suggestion. “Not like there’s a set pattern to how many are killed in any particular place--”

 

“--so it’s possible they’re still in town, or we’re close enough behind to find the trail,” Dean finished.  “Good idea, Sammy.”

 

Sam grinned a little, and wondered if that little-brother happiness from being praised by Dean would ever stop being awesome.  Hopefully not.

 

“Try Ticketmaster, maybe,” Sam said.  “I don’t know if this is an official circus, or just some randomly traveling troupe, but they usually have some kind of list of local events.”

 

“Or maybe this place has some other kind of entertainment leaderboard,” Dean stated.  “I’ll get on that. Could you grab the map out of the car? I want to retrace its steps.”

 

Sam nodded instead of answering aloud, and went to the Impala, digging in the glove compartment for the map Dean wanted.  It was the smallest map they had, and definitely had not been made by AAA. Dean had laminated a miniature map of the United States, too small to make out useful details such as highways, but perfect to use on the corkboard.

 

Not for the first time, Sam wondered why Dean didn’t just keep the damn thing _on_ the corkboard, but knew better than to bring it up.

 

He went back to the room, and was very careful not to scuff the salt line still on the ground when he opened the door.  Dean was sitting on the edge of the bed, scrolling through his phone, a scowl on his face.

 

Sam knew Dean had no problem using technology, but it was almost endearing, how much Dean hated to do it.  Dean could hack into a police station or a security system as well as Sam, but he would endlessly complain about having to do it, making references back to what he called “the good old days.”  Sam wasn’t sure what those were in Dean’s grand scheme of things, but _he_ generally preferred not being caught when sneaking into buildings that had alarms.

 

“Ticketmaster’s a bust,” Dean said without moving from his perch.  His scowl deepened as Sam looked at him. “No circus tickets on it, so I tried a few other areas, and no dice.  But…”

 

“But?” Sam inquired, sitting on the bed and turning to face Dean.

 

“But it gave me an idea,” Dean continued, looking up from his phone.  “I decided to look on Craigslist for the areas that correspond to the murders, and timed the times of death to events that were in town.”

 

“Find anything?”  Sam asked, starting to not like the look on Dean’s face.  It had morphed from a deep scowl to a look of resigned disgust.

 

“Aside from a whole lot of gross things that I didn’t realize went on in most small towns, yes,”  Dean sighed, running his right hand through his hair. The left hand tightened on the cell phone until Sam could hear a very faint creaking from the plastic cover.  “You’re not going to believe this.”

 

“Don’t leave me in suspense, Dean,” Sam groaned, flopping onto his back.  The bed bounced a little under his weight. “Just spit it out.”

 

He saw Dean take a deep breath, almost as if he was fortifying himself, then he muttered something too quietly for Sam to catch.

 

Sam gave him a look and quirked an eyebrow.  Whatever it was, he needed to know, and it couldn’t be _that_ bad.

 

“An erotic circus,” Dean said, louder.

 

Or maybe it was.

 

Sam cleared his throat, then opened and closed his mouth a few times.  He was, for the first time he could remember, absolutely speechless.

 

“Yeah, that’s how I reacted too,” Dean said wryly, smirking a little at Sam.  “Though with a bit more swearing.”

 

After a few swallows, Sam felt like he could talk again.  “Why does that exist?!” He demanded.

 

“Hell if I know, dude,” Dean replied, “but hey, rule 34, right?”

 

“How the hell do you know about rule 34 when you categorically refuse to touch a computer unless someone holds a knife to your throat?” Sam grumbled, covering his face with his hands.

 

“I may not like tech, Sam,” Dean chuckled, and it was so gross and wrong that Sam could _hear_ the eyebrow waggle in his voice, even when he couldn’t _see_ it.  “But I _definitely_ like porn.”

 

Sam groaned, and didn’t even try to muffle it.  It almost drowned out Dean’s cackling.

 

 

Circum Erotico.

 

Dean rolled his eyes yet again at the name.  He was sure that people who didn’t have a basic command of Latin would think it sounded mysterious and exotic, but it really just mean “erotic circus.”

 

Truth in advertising was good and all, but Dean wasn’t impressed.  He didn’t like it when people didn’t try hard enough to actually be clever.

 

Circum Erotico was a traveling circus, and it had been in all the places where people had turned up dead, and during the right times.  Tracking the circus had been a slightly harder task, since it never seemed to show up in a place that didn’t already have one big-top act going.  Eventually, they’d managed to rule out the other circus acts that had been in the area at the same times, and so they were left with Circum Erotico, something Dean didn’t even know _could_ exist.

 

The Craigslist ads in the various cities weren’t helping with his internal speculation.  What kind of acts did they have? How did they even manage to get licensing, or sidestep the various rules about public entertainment?  Who did they have to pay to get the space to run their acts? It was all very confusing.

 

Sam had had one suggestion that made more sense than anyone finding a space to put a giant tent, paying someone to use said tent, and then having a show in it.  “They probably rent a theatre space in town and just set it up as they need it,” Sam had said, after they had both spent a fruitless hour looking up how traveling performers got permits.  “It keeps entry down, they can card the people who come in, and they don’t have to bother carrying a giant tent and the equipment to set it up with them while they travel.”

 

“Then why the fuck did they bother calling it a circus, when it’s sounding more like a burlesque show?” Dean had grumbled, feeling very annoyed.

 

“Hell if I know,” Sam had said with a shrug.  “Why are things called things, anyway?”

 

Dean hadn’t cared enough at that point to pursue the issue.

 

What he _did_ care about was the fact that it’d be even harder to figure out where this traveling circus, or erotic show, or burlesque, or whatever the fuck it was, was going.  An actual circus, with animals, usually traveled by train (Dean, privately, was glad that animal-driven circuses were on the way out, because that was just fucking _inhumane_ ), and while that sucked for the animals, at least it was easy to track.

 

There didn’t seem to be a set pattern for where Circum Erotico would show up. They didn’t announce tour dates, and if they only advertised through Craigslist, their clientele and fans wouldn’t necessarily know where they’d be going next.

 

Since there wasn’t much else to do, they went through the crime scene details more thoroughly and made sure to set up the timelines they needed. Having everything ready to be cross-referenced at a moment’s notice would be vital to their being able to catch whoever (or _whatever_ ) was doing this.

 

On their third day in Salt Lake City, having despaired of finding any more information, or things to do (Dean was very tired of trying to navigate the city to find the bars, among the dry zones), they hit paydirt.

 

Dean was attempting to write a program (or find a hunter to write one for him) to track word usage in nationwide Craigslist sites, when he found an advertisement asking for people to audition and join the troupe.

 

 _“Wanted: attractive people, preferably taller than 5’5’’,”_ the ad read, and Dean could hear people's complaints of unfair sizeism from where he sat.   _“Willing and able to work nearly or completely nude.  Respectful of bodily autonomy of co-workers.”_

 

Dean approved of the sentiment, but that was definitely a unique way, in his opinion, of saying “keep your hands to yourself.”

 

 _“Must be capable of either great feats of strength, or be talented with weaponry,”_ the ad continued.   _“Candidates must be willing and able to travel for long periods of time.  Auditions will be held at--”_

 

There was an address and a phone number listed, and Dean quickly wrote those onto a scrap of paper, then checked the Maps app on his phone for the address.  It was a local theatre.

 

Dean printed the ad as well, though he didn’t think either he or Sam cared that the job was a contract position, or that no insurance would be offered.  If this was the lead they needed, they would have to work fast.


	5. Chapter Four

**CHAPTER FOUR**

 

There were so many things that Sam hated to hear come out of Dean’s mouth.  Burps, curses, insults, and vomit ranked very high on that list.

 

“Sam, we both need to put on thongs and cover ourselves in body oil” now topped the charts.

 

“Tell me you’re joking,” Sam said flatly.  “I hate body oil, and the only thing that stupid thong ever got me was fingernail imprints on my ass from old ladies.”

 

“Do you want to catch this serial-killer demon or what?”  Dean demanded, already stripping himself down. Sam rolled his eyes at the ceiling, partly due to annoyance, and partly to avoid being blinded by Dean’s whiteness.  Dean didn’t go outside enough to get a tan.

 

“So this isn’t some kinky way to scandalize this place?”  Sam asked, slowly. “This has a point?”

 

“Circum Erotico is having an open audition for a strongman and a knives expert,” Dean said, unapologetically, offensively naked.  Sam closed his eyes and turned around, blinking a few times. If he had thought Dean’s _chest_ was white, his ass could probably stop traffic because of reflected glare.

 

“I called a few minutes ago and they’re expecting us,” Dean continued.  “I’ll probably be the weapons act, and since you’ve got all those muscles, you’ll be a shoe-in for the strongman.  We just need you to shine them up!”

 

The sound of a zipper and rustling meant Dean was digging in his duffel for the one thong he owned.  For reasons Sam never cared to ask about, it was pink.

Dean’s smirk the first time Sam had seen it convinced Sam he never wanted to know the reasons behind it.

 

“Safe to look now, you big baby,” Dean said, sounding bored.  Turning back around, Sam squeezed his eyes shut again briefly, wondering if it was too early in the day to down some booze.  Dean in a pink thong was almost worse than seeing him in Full Monty-mode.

 

What Dean had said earlier fully, _finally,_ caught up to Sam.  “Wait, on Craigslist?  Dean, you found their location?”

 

“Uh, yeah, dude,” Dean said.  “You think I put this damn butt-floss on for fun?”

 

“I don’t think I want to know what you do for fun, _Dean_ ,” Sam muttered, wrinkling his nose.  

 

Dean flipped him off.

 

Sam returned the gesture almost automatically.  “Dean, we can’t put the body oil on before we audition,” he pointed out.  “We’ll ruin whatever clothing we’re wearing!”

 

“Washing machines were invented for a reason, Sammy,” Dean retorted, pulling on his jeans.  “Don’t be a baby.”

 

Sam let out a groan of frustration, but went looking for his skimpiest pair of...God, he didn’t even want to call it underwear.  There wasn’t enough cloth to deserve the name.

 

Unlike Dean and his pink-loving ways, Sam believed the classics were best, so his thong was black.  Black as the hole he now wanted to bury Dean in, for finding this case, for figuring out how to track them, and for whatever shit Dean was going to pull in the future.  

 

Sam knew in his bones that something he could pin on Dean was going to happen in the future.  It was little-brother intuition.

 

Resigning himself to the smell and feel of body oil, Sam found an old, tight shirt, and his crappiest pair of jeans.  The jeans were falling apart, and the shirt was probably at least two sizes too small for the way his body was now, but if he was trying to pull off a strongman act, that was probably a good thing.  Truth in advertising. They wanted a strongman, Sam would show them one.

 

He already wanted to put another layer on top of the t-shirt.  He felt uncomfortably bare.

 

“Don’t you grab that jacket, Sam,” Dean warned him, now wearing a tight baseball shirt and pair of jeans.  The shirt was grey, and the jeans were way tighter than anything Sam had seen Dean wear. “They need to see the goods.”

 

“Gotta love feeling like a piece of meat,” Sam sighed, dropping the jacket he was going to wear.

 

“If you’re going to feel like one, might as well be a prime rib,” Dean pointed out.  “Look expensive as fuck.”

 

Sam grumbled under his breath about looking trashy as fuck, but Dean either didn’t hear him, or didn’t care to respond.

 

Dean fished out a small bottle of baby oil from some place Sam didn’t want to think about, and put it into Sam’s hand.  “Don’t let me lose that,” he warned. “It _is_ going on us, and you _will_ deal with it, bitch.”

 

“Jerk,” Sam retorted, almost out of reflex.

 

They moved toward the door of the hotel, and Sam opened it, ushering Dean ahead.  Dean walked with an exaggerated swagger that he likely thought looked cool and sexy, but all Sam could see was Dean trying subtly to get the thong out from between his ass cheeks.

 

Sam bit his lip to keep from laughing, but the urge to laugh went away as the thong got up close and personal with him.  He’d forgotten how much he hated wearing the damn things. He always felt like his ass was going to slowly start swallowing it, and then it would never see the light of day again.

 

Sam carefully got into the passenger seat, wincing as the thong caught him in a delicate area.  He shuffled around until the pinching sensation went away, then got to watch Dean go through the same thing.

 

“Why don’t we just wear tight boxers instead, next time?”  Sam demanded. “Every single fricking time we have to pull of a sexy act, we complain about these damn things.  Every time!”

 

“I like keeping this one around as an emergency slingshot?”  Dean suggested, looking sheepish. “I forgot how much I hate this thing.”

 

Dean started the car and they drove for a few minutes in silence.  Remembering something, Sam groaned.

 

“We forgot a change of underwear, and towels!”

 

_“Shit.”_

 

 

Dean could not feel his ass anymore.  The thong had pinched off all sensation below his waist, and had merged with his essence.  He was the thong, and the thong had become him.

 

It was really sad when he couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not.

 

The auditioning process was taking far longer than either of them had thought it would.  For a city like Salt Lake, far more people had shown up than Dean would have imagined. He guessed even cities in ultra-conservative Utah wanted to see something titillating every now and then.  Who would have thought so many people wanted to be part of a traveling erotica show?

 

One thing was more or less as Dean had expected; very few of the people who had shown up to audition were women.  He regretted that, since a person could only see so much naked man before they got a bit bored, but he imagined very few women were going to be willing to expose themselves like this.  It was all too easy to run into someone a person might know from church or school in a place like this.

 

So far, all of the weapons acts he’d seen were standard fare, and nothing to write home about.  One guy did archery, which Dean found personally impressive, but the guy’s aim wasn’t always on target.  One arrow had nearly flown into the audience, to some loud screams, mostly from the guy who’d nearly gotten an arrow to the junk.

 

Dean could practically hear the sound of a lawsuit being written.

 

Another person, a woman, did a pretty cool act with balls suspended on chains, and the balls could be lit on fire.  She was pretty hot too, and thinking _that_ made Dean wince at the unintentional pun.  She managed a very solid dance, but when she ended, one of the balls hit the floor and set a portion of it on fire.  Dean was fairly sure she wouldn’t be getting a call back.

 

It was gratifying to see the stagehands put the fire out quickly; Dean was happy to see they took safety seriously.

 

The rest of the auditions passed in a blur for Dean, who hadn’t seen anything more special than a lot of pretty bodies doing most of the stuff Dean and Sam had been made to practice since before they hit puberty.

 

Finally, it was Sam’s turn.  He gave Dean one last glare before disappearing backstage.  A few minutes later, he showed up on stage, naked except for the thong, the body oil glistening under the harsh stage lights.  Sam had categorically refused to put the oil on a second before he’d absolutely had to, and Dean allowed it. He didn’t like the damn stuff either, but Sam threw absolute _bitchfits_ when he had to use it.

 

Someday, Dean would figure out problem Sam had with looking fuckable.  Today was probably not going to be that day.

 

Silence spread out from the stage, slowly radiating further into the audience, as everyone turned to the stage like flowers to the sun.  Dean grinned a little to himself with brotherly pride; he might tease Sam for looking like a girl, having longer hair than most and all, but he knew Sam looked better than any of the guys before him.  Some of the faintly sick expressions on the faces of the hopeful people told him they knew it too.

 

Sam had gone on a health kick, which included lifting weights and running, in addition to all the sparring and other training they both did on a daily basis, and it showed.  Dean ruefully admitted that Sam was more built than him, corded with muscle down to his fingertips, and bronzed from the sun.

 

The guy holding the auditions, named Torie (Dean _thought_ that was his name; not like he remembered useless stuff), actually had to clear his throat before he talked.  “And, ah, what is your name?”

 

“I’m Sam,” Sam said, shrugging a little under the light, and glancing over to where Torie’s voice had come from with a slight smile.  Dean saw the man put a hand to his heart when Sam talked.

 

They _so_ had this in the bag.

 

“And your act?”  The person next to Torie, a guy Dean _thought_ was named Howard, asked.

 

“Strongman,” Sam answered easily.  “I’m a powerlifter, and I deadlift about four plates--”

 

“Four plates?” Torie interrupted, sounding impressed.

 

“Yeah, that’s a little over 400 pounds,” Sam said easily.  “I also squat about 400 pounds at the moment, but I had to take a little time off from deadlifting due to a bicep injury.”

 

When Sam said ‘bicep,’ Dean saw him tense his arms so his biceps would get even bigger, showing off the definition in his arms.  Dean quietly watched that Howard-guy go from more-than-polite interest to practically drooling in his seat.

 

 _Good job, Sammy,_ Dean thought, impressed.   _You may not like showing yourself off, but damn, you know how to do it.  Good job._  

 

“Could we see a demonstration of your ability?”  Howard asked politely. Dean had to hand it to Howard, who was at least acting professional.  Torie looked like he was on the verge of asking Sam to fuck him on the spot.

 

“Um, sure,” Sam replied, “if someone wants to volunteer to get lifted.”

 

Dean immediately raised his hand.  Might as well get him on the stage also, to maximize their impact.

 

Sam mouthed _“what are you doing?”_ at him, but Dean wouldn’t be deterred.  No one else seemed to be raising their hands anyway, and Dean was getting a little skeeved at the way Torie was undressing Sam (not that he had far to go, a tiny corner of Dean’s mind noted in amusement) with his eyes.  Completely not respectful.

 

“Yeah, sure, you can join him on stage…”  Torie trailed off, squinting in Dean’s general direction.  The lights from the stage were probably making it hard to see, Dean figured.

 

“Dean, and I’ll go up right now,” Dean called easily.  “I’m auditioning for a weaponry demonstration, anyway.”

 

“By all means,” Howard boomed, waving a hand at him.

 

Dean launched himself from his seat and headed up the stairs to the backstage area.  He spotted Sam’s clothes immediately, folded neatly onto a chair, and the bottle of body oil sitting next to them, but not touching.  Smothering a smirk at the thought of Sam ever-so-carefully arranging the bottle away from his clothes, Dean carelessly stripped off his clothes, grabbed the bottle, and gave himself a quick rubdown.

 

“I look okay?” He asked the backstage director, a young-looking, really tall guy holding a clipboard (and weren’t they _always_ holding a clipboard, mused that corner of his mind dedicated to useless observations).

 

“Fuckable,” the director answered, giving him a leer and a very obvious once-over.

 

“Eh, I’ll take it,” Dean grinned, and with a small salute at the guy, strutted onto stage wearing nothing but his thong and the oil.

 

The lights immediately blinded him to the audience, but Dean’s ears still worked well enough to hear a few gasps from that area.  He winked in some random direction, and was rewarded by a louder gasp, and a worrisome, but gratifying, thud.

 

“What the hell are you doing?” Sam hissed between his teeth, deceptively-shy, wholesome smile still on his face.

 

“Trying to sell us as a package deal,” Dean whispered back, making sure his voice only reached Sam’s ears.  In a louder voice, he asked, “are there any targets? If you have some knives, I’ll demonstrate what I can do, while Sam here--”--he slapped Sam’s shoulder, ignoring the glare--”shows off what _he_ can do.”

 

Murmurs from the audience reached Dean’s ears again, and they sounded impressed.  They nearly drowned out the aggravated sigh that Sam made.

 

The guy who had eye-fucked Dean earlier brought out a couple of small throwing knives and a target, handing them off to Dean with a flirty wink, before setting up a target on a pedestal.

 

“How is this going to work?”  Sam grumbled quietly to Dean. “I can easily hold you up while we do this, but you’re not exactly the skinny, sixteen-year old self you were the _last_ time we did a ballet routine--”

 

“I thought we’d agreed never to speak of that incident again,” Dean whisper-snarled.

 

“I thought we’d _also_ agreed we would never have to put ourselves into these thongs again,” Sam growled, low enough that no one else would hear.

 

Dean didn’t have time to respond to that before Sam stalked right up to him, grabbed him by the hips, and lifted him straight off the ground.  Dean positioned his legs into a grand-jeté almost in reflex. Fuck his body memory; how the fuck did he remember how to do something he hadn’t done in twenty years?!

 

Sam slowly turned them in a circle, not even trembling as he held Dean up.  Maybe Dean should have let Sam train him in powerlifting, because _damn_ , he wanted to be able to do stuff like this too.

 

Dean spotted the target, and arched his back a little, trying to make himself look as good as possible.  When Sam turned them again, Dean whirled a knife into each hand, twirled them a few times, and let them fly.  Shocked exclamations followed the solid _thunk_ as each knife hit the target.

 

Without bothering to look, Dean knew both of them had hit inside the bullseye.


	6. Chapter Five

**CHAPTER FIVE**

 

“--and we’ll be in town for just one more performance tonight around 7, which is unfortunate, since it means we can’t add you to the roster yet, but it does mean you get a little more downtime until we go to our next location,” Kyle, the backstage director, finished, his voice a little breathless.

 

Since neither Dean nor Sam had bothered to put clothes back on after their audition, Sam thought the man’s distraction could be excused.

 

Now that the theatre’s full lights were turned on, it was easier to make Kyle out.  He was dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt, which was standard fare for people trying to stay out of sight while they worked in stage productions.  The clipboard he held, in contrast, was orange and blue, with some strange stylized leaf pattern on it. Kyle had tanned skin, brown eyes, sandy blond hair, and was one of the few people Sam had met in recent memory who could literally look him straight in the eye.

 

Sam didn’t like thinking about how much bigger he was than many people, but it was also refreshing to meet someone who was his height.

 

They were getting the official speech from Kyle, ostensibly from Torie and Howard, Circum Erotico’s leaders, that they were hired on for the tour.  Sam had seen Kyle talking to two other people earlier, and the happy expressions on both men’s faces had indicated they’d also been hired.

 

Kyle, Sam noticed, kept giving Dean sex-eyes, and had to keep his own eyes from rolling.  Someday, that flirty attitude Dean directed at anyone with a pulse was going to get him in trouble.  It mostly pissed Sam off that Dean could get himself out of trouble, even now, with a wink and a smile.

 

Admittedly, Sam really wanted to see Dean flirt with the wrong person.  Just once. Dean had said his flirting had gotten him into trouble before, but was it too much for a little brother to ask to _see_ it?

 

“We’re still booked at our hotel for now,” Dean said in response, and Sam realized belatedly that he must have hesitated a bit too long.  “Is that going to be a problem?”

 

“No, not at all!”  Kyle waved his arms around in dismay, just barely managing to hold onto the clipboard.  Despite himself, Sam smiled. Kyle was a breath of fresh air in this really weird situation.  

 

“We don’t really try and stay in the same hotels all the time,” Kyle stated, once he was done with his flailing.  Sam wondered why the twinkle in his eye had diminished. “Go ahead and stay there with your, uh, partner--”

 

“Brother,” Sam corrected, sighing.  “He’s my brother.”

 

“Oh, your _brother,_ ” Kyle said, almost worshipping the word.  The twinkle came back, and Sam had to turn away briefly to hide a smile.  He’d just unintentionally made Kyle think he had a chance with Dean.

 

“Well, you two _brothers,_ ” Kyle continued, putting unnecessary emphasis on their relationship, and Sam started to wonder if he’d made a mistake, “can certainly just stay where you are for now, but you’ll have to meet up with Torie and Howard tomorrow afternoon, so we can go over scheduling and tour dates and everything else!”

 

“What time?” Dean asked, smiling up at Kyle.  Sam could hear the man’s heart rate kick up from where he was standing, and knew that Dean, an accomplished expert in knowing when someone wanted to fuck him, probably did as well.

 

“Uh, one o’clock,” Kyle said, his voice cracking a slight bit.  Sam dialed down his estimation of Kyle’s age; he didn’t look much younger than Sam, but Sam was also lousy at judging age.  Clearing his throat, Kyle went on, “but you can always show up a bit early, meet some of the performers. You’ll be working with them, after all.”

 

“See you then, Kyle,” Dean purred, which made Kyle turn red.  Sam sighed, careful to keep it under his breath. He’d had to remember to tell Dean to take it down a few notches at the earliest opportunity.

 

“Tomorrow for sure, Kyle,” Sam smoothly interjected for himself.  “But, before we go, could I ask you for a really big favor?”

 

“Anything you need!”

 

“Where are the bathrooms in this place?”  Sam gestured down at himself, and was strangely pleased that Kyle’s eyes almost helplessly trailed down Sam’s body.  “I don’t know about Dean, but I don’t really like putting clothes on over oil.”

 

Kyle rattled off the location of the bathroom, and Sam didn’t wait for Dean; he just grabbed his clothes and headed there.  He was gratified that the men’s bathroom included a little area with a couch and a mirror, like some of the women’s bathrooms he’d had to inspect over the years.  He dropped his clothing onto the couch, walked to the sink, grabbed some paper towels, and proceeded to wet them down.

 

Sam thought for a moment, then also put a little soap on the towels.  He knew he’d be showering the second they could get back to their hotel room, but there wasn’t any harm in getting as much of the oil off himself as possible now.

 

“Way to leave me behind, Samantha.”

 

Sam had been expecting Dean to show up, and as predicted, it was when Sam was mid-lather.

 

“I didn’t want to take you away from your adoring audience too soon,” Sam chuckled, continuing to scrub at himself.  The soap foamed a little on his chest and arms as he briskly wiped with the soapy paper towels. “Besides,” he added, “I’m trying to save my clothes and skin, here.  Give me a break.”

 

Instead of answering, Dean grabbed some of his own paper towels and proceeded to do exactly what Sam was doing, but to himself.  

 

“I hate this shit too, you know,” Dean grumbled.  “It smells bad and goes everywhere.

 

Sam figured that was as much of an apology as he was going to get for having to be nearly naked in front of strangers, so he decided to take it.

 

“We’ll get the rest of it off at the hotel,” Sam sighed, abandoning the soapy towels in favor of trying to rinse himself off.  Small puddles of water started forming at his feet. Belatedly, Sam realized he hadn’t seen any drains in the floor, and with a mental shrug, decided to ignore it.  It was clean water.

 

“Wet down some paper towels and do that instead, so we don’t kill ourselves if we slip on wet tile,” Dean ordered.  “What’s the game plan, here?”

 

“Not like we can just slip a ‘Christo’ casually into conversation without someone noticing,” Sam said, doing what Dean had said.  Not surprisingly, wet paper towels got the soap off him a lot faster than trying to bathe himself in the sink, like a bird.

 

“Yeah, it’s not going to be easy to spot the demon,” Dean muttered, as he soaped the oil off himself.  A few minutes later, both Sam and Dean were about as free of oil as they could be without a full shower.

 

“We’ll just have to be on the lookout for things, and make sure to get enough holy water to give the entire cast something to drink,” Sam suggested, as they stalked toward their clothes and shoes.  

 

“Good game plan,” Dean approved.  “Let’s get out of here.”

 

Sam nodded, but thought of something.  Without any ado, he grabbed the thin straps of his thong and pulled, hard.  The nylon stretched tight across his skin, which hurt for a moment, but he was rewarded shortly after by the screech of it ripping off him.  He had to reach around and pick the floss portion of it out from between his asscheeks, but the relief Sam felt when it fell off of him made it worth _everything._

 

Sam dumped the scraps of the thong into the trash, feeling victorious, then stepped into his jeans, carefully zipped them up, and promptly realized that going commando was actually worse than wearing the thong.

 

He could _not_ fucking win whenever a thong entered the picture.  That much was clear.

 

 

“We should take in Circum Erotico’s show tonight,” Dean called into the bathroom.  Sam, the big baby, was still showering. Apparently, Sam had forgotten about the oil, touched his body, then ran his hands through his hair.  Dean was concerned about Sam having any hair _left,_ if he scrubbed himself any longer.

 

Then again, since they would have to go on stage mostly naked, maybe letting Sam accidentally exfoliate himself wasn’t a bad idea.

 

“What?”  Sam yelled.  Dean heard some heavy thumps from the tub, but no yelp of pain.  Good sign.

 

“We need to see what kind of show they put on,” Dean said, more loudly.  “We have to know what kind of stuff they’re going to expect us to do.”

 

“Thought we would get that kind of briefing tomorrow,” Sam retorted.  Some gargling came through the bathroom door. Not for the first time tonight, Dean wondered what the hell Sam was doing in there.

 

“Yeah, but if we see them in action, maybe we’ll see something they don’t want us to see, like, say, black eyes or impossible teleportation,” Dean pointed out.

 

The water shut off in the bathroom, and the silence rang for a moment in Dean’s ears.  As his hearing gradually returned to normal, Dean registered the sound of a towel scrubbing over a body.  A few minutes later, Sam, with his hair in an unapologetically damp haystack, exited the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist.

 

“Did you treat the cuts from your impromptu stripping routine?” Dean asked idly, like he wasn’t laughing on the inside.  Sam’s glare told him the innocent act wasn’t effective.

 

When Sam had ripped off the thong in the theatre bathroom, neither he nor Dean had noticed that the nylon had left welts along the cut of his hips and the dent above his ass.  Dean had only noticed it when Sam had brushed past him into the bathroom, since Dean had claimed first shower.

 

“ _Yes_ , Dean,” Sam said in a voice that could have refrozen a polar ice cap.  “They’re disinfected. Probably won’t even show up as much of a mark tomorrow.”

 

“You’re the one who ripped it off yourself,” Dean protested, putting his hands up defensively.  “I was just looking after your body! You’re going to need to be able to show it off!”

 

Sam flipped Dean off, then knelt down to rummage in his bag.  Dean couldn’t help but notice the underwear Sam chose was the baggiest, loosest, most unattractive set of boxers in his collection.  It was like the male version of granny panties.

 

“Better make sure no one in the troop sees you wearing that, Sammy, or our cover’s gonna get blown.”

 

“Oh, come on, Dean, why the hell would I let anyone see me if I didn’t have a choice?”

 

“Maybe because some of them wanted to jump your bones as soon as you got on stage.”

 

“Speaking of that,” Sam drawled, eyeing Dean up and down, “make sure you’re not alone with Kyle too long, or you’ll get a confession of undying lust or something.”

 

“Uh, what?”

 

“Come _on,_ Mr. Flirty,” Sam snorted.  “He was drooping like a sad flower until I pointed out we’re related, and then he perked up.  Dude wants you.”

 

Dean, while flattered, was also a little uncomfortable with both Sam’s assessment and the knowledge that he’d managed to attract someone without meaning to do it.  He scrubbed a hand over his face as he sank onto his bed.

 

“Didn’t want to lead the guy on,” he mumbled.  “I’m not a heartless bastard, y’know.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said softly, and patted his shoulder.  Dean looked up and saw that Sam was now wearing an old pair of sweatpants and a soft, black t-shirt.  

 

Feeling awkward, Dean asked, “so, did you leave any skin on you?”

 

“Enough to look normal,” Sam quipped back.  “It’s about five now. Let’s grab dinner, then see about getting some tickets to the show.”

 

They’d each finished their respective pizzas the night before, and so they ventured out and found a sandwich shop.  Sam got a tuna sandwich, and Dean decided he’d get a salad with some chicken, to Sam’s visible shock. Dean shrugged a little, but it wasn’t like he could eat like Sam, who actually had to _work_ to put weight on himself.  If Dean wasn’t careful, he’d get a belly on him.

 

Dean didn’t want to think of himself as an overly vain person, but when he was next to Sam, who had spent a long time sculpting his body into what it was now, he couldn’t deny that he wanted to look _better._

 

Not that, he acknowledged to himself with a slightly cocky smirk, he’d had any complaints up until now.  That Kyle dude apparently wanted to jump _his_ bones, not Sam’s.

 

...not that he was supposed to be _this_ cheerful about it.

 

Oh, fuck it; Dean was fine with anyone who thought he was attractive.  Didn’t mean he necessarily returned the favor, but positive, respectful attention was positive, respectful attention, no matter who it was from, and he didn’t see a damn thing wrong about having it aimed in his direction.

 

Dinner was mostly silent; Sam had something on his mind, Dean could tell, and Dean himself was curious about what they’d see tonight during the show.  He wondered if it would be trashy, or classy, or even how long it’d go for. He was super curious about how the circus management chose where to go, since it didn’t seem as though there was any kind of pattern to their shows.

 

Craigslist was also a strange place to advertise the show itself.  Dean felt like putting a boot up his own ass for thinking that a show like the one Circum Erotico was likely putting on would showcase itself so openly.  A lot of attitudes had changed about how sexuality was displayed or portrayed in the media, but Dean didn’t think that the world had gone _that_ progressive without his notice.

 

Plus, he had a feeling that, if the demon was hiding among the people in the circus (and that in itself was something Dean found odd), the only way they were going to find it was if it messed up.

 

They _needed_ to have more information about how the circus worked, first and foremost, before they actually started digging around.

 

It was a little past six when they finished eating.  Dean had gone back, despite his better intentions, to get a small bag of chips.  He consoled himself with the fact that he’d opted for the baked ones, which were a little less fat and carbs.

 

“Back to the theatre, then?”  Sam invited.

 

“Yeah, let’s go,” Dean said with forced lightness.  He was starting to feel like backing out of going, and didn’t really know why.  Maybe he was just tired.

 

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want,” Sam said slowly.  “You do know that, right?”

 

Dean shrugged, feeling a little helpless.

 

“Or you _do_ want to go,” Sam muttered, “and just don’t think it’s as good an idea as you thought?”

 

That sounded about right, so Dean nodded.

 

“It is a good idea, though, Dean,” Sam stated.

 

“I know,” Dean grumbled, feeling a little rebellious.  “I don’t know, man, maybe I’m just tired. We _should_ go.”

 

“Sure?”

 

“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean said, after a deep breath.  

 

“We can leave early,” Sam suggested.  “Just stay for an hour or so, get the layout, then leave.  We don’t even have to stay for intermission, if they have one.”

 

Dean brightened at that, and nodded at Sam again.  That sounded like something he could do.

 

They got into the Impala and headed back to the theatre.  Driving there helped Dean shake the odd mood that had gotten into him back at the sandwich shop, and by the time they arrived, he was almost looking forward to it again.

 

The admissions person, a handsome woman wearing a blue tank top, with defined shoulders and arms, took their money with a smile, and said she was looking forward to working with them in a quiet voice.  Dean smiled back at her, and saw Sam doing the same out of the corner of his eye. She handed them each a ticket and told them that, contrary to how the tickets were written, there wasn’t actually any assigned seating.

 

“We don’t really pack the places,” she added, sounding apologetic.  Her name tag said Emily. Dean noted she had nice eyes. “But we make enough to pay everyone, and get us to the next place.  That’s what’s important.”

 

Dean suddenly wanted to know what her story was, but Sam tapped his arm and indicated the doors.  

 

“See you later, Emily,” Dean said with a wave, “but we wanna see what we got ourselves into.”

 

Emily cheerfully waved back, and Dean walked with Sam back into the theatre.

 

There weren’t any programs at the door, which solved at least one mystery.  The reason that none of the victims had had anything related to the circus on them was simple; there weren’t any materials for the shows.  

 

Sam guided them to some seats in the relative middle of the theatre, and they sat slightly to the left of the stage.  Best seats in the house, in Dean’s estimation. There were other people scattered around the theatre, though no one near where they were sitting.  In Dean’s estimation, half the theatre was full, and that was far more than he had been expecting.

 

“Didn’t think there’d be this many people here,” Sam muttered in Dean’s ear.

 

“Guess people are bigger perverts, or hornier, than we gave them credit for,” Dean whispered back.  Sam snorted a laugh out his nose.

 

The lights dimmed, and the soft sounds of conversation around them quieted.  A spotlight shone down on the stage, a bit melodramatically in Dean’s opinion, and then a man stepped into the light.

 

To Dean’s surprise, it was Kyle.  No longer wearing all black, he was shirtless, revealing a surprisingly strong, wiry frame.  He wasn’t the beanpole Dean had originally thought he was. Interesting.

 

‘Welcome to the Circum Erotico,” Kyle boomed, and Dean belatedly realized he was wearing a mic.  “I’m your host, but really, I’m just your facilitator. You have, after all, chosen to show up to this most _special_ of events, to see these most _interesting_ of displays!”

 

Dean was impressed.  He didn’t think the blushing Kyle, who was giving him sex-eyes from earlier, had this much innuendo lurking in him.  It was still cheesy as all fuck, but he had to give Kyle _some_ credit.

 

“Tonight’s show, our last one for this place, will be _special_ ,” Kyle continued, moving around the stage.  The spotlight smoothly followed him around, keeping him illuminated.  Kyle sparkled as he moved, and Dean figured he was probably wearing body glitter.  Smart.

 

“We’ve got two special acts for you, featuring some of our most talented performers!”  Kyle smoothly whirled in a circle, one arm stretched out horizontally from his body. “Prepare for acts of debauchery, athleticism, and erotica such as you have not seen in your life!”

 

When Kyle came out of his twirl, the lights all cut out, presumably to let Kyle get off stage.  Dean found himself, to his embarrassment, anticipating what the show would be.

 

A few minutes later, the lights slowly came back on, and Dean was surprised to see two men, wearing tight black shorts, standing on stage, facing each other.  Both wore masks, but on closer inspection, the masks were actually elaborate black face paint, which glittered in the light as they breathed. Each man held a long, thick ribbon, and each ribbon was rainbow-colored.

 

Music started to play, and in perfect unison, the men began to dance.  The ribbons whirled around their glitter-laden figures, and Dean was reminded of nothing so much as the rhythmic gymnastic performances he’d seen in the Olympics, the few times he was in a position to watch them.  

 

It suddenly seemed a shame to Dean that the men didn’t do routines like the women, because these men were doing a _fantastic_ job.  They were flexible and graceful.  They leapt and arched, and the ribbons created an amazing display of color that drew the eye.

 

What Dean _wasn’t_ getting was how this show was supposed to get sexy.  Sure, it was rare to see men dancing like women did (and Dean privately thought it was stupid to say that; dance was dance, and it didn’t matter what kind of body did it), but he didn’t see how this was inherently erotic.

 

Until it changed.

 

The music stayed in the background, but it got sultrier, somehow, and the beat a little slower and heavier.  The men danced closer and closer to each other, the ribbons interweaving together in such a way that Dean found it impossible to trace what ribbon belonged to which person.

 

Graceful step after step, the men got closer to each other, until the ribbons fell from their hands to pool on the ground around them, a diorama of color, and barely a breath separated them men from touching each other directly.  Dean found himself on the edge of his seat, wondering what would happen.

 

Deliberately, one man (Dean saw it was the slightly shorter one, though the height difference hadn’t been apparent until now), stood on his toes, bringing his mouth closer to the other man’s.  Just before they touched, he whirled away, then looked over his shoulder, shadow-rimmed eyes glancing over a shoulder at the other man in what Dean recognized as a come-hither look.

 

Almost like he was entranced, the taller one reached out an arm to touch, and moved closer.  The shorter one, abandoning the fake shyness, turned to take his hand, and pulled the taller one flush against his body.

 

With almost agonizing slowness, the shorter man sank down the taller one’s body, glossy lips catching the light, trailing down the taller man’s chest.

 

Dean started feeling a little warm, even though he wasn’t really into men, and glanced over at Sam, wanting to share his discomfort a little.  To his surprise, Dean saw that Sam was entranced by the performance, and was intently watching, with his arms folded across his chest.

 

Almost feeling like he was looking at something too private, Dean reluctantly turned back to the stage, to find that the shorter man had finished going down, and had laid himself onto the ground, his back arched up and his hands grasping the almost-forgotten ribbon circle.

 

The taller man sank onto his knees and yanked the smaller man up by his hips, causing the shorter man to straddle him, then in a move that had Dean gasping in shock, stood up, still holding the other man against him.  The ribbon, still held in the smaller man’s hands, was thrown into the air, to float down again, like a silken cloud.

 

Blushing more than he had in recent memory, Dean looked down and refused to look up again until the song ended.  When he did, he almost regretted it. The men weren’t kissing, and the shorts hadn’t come off, but they were tangled in a way that Dean found both deeply embarrassing and incredibly compelling.

 

Sam applauded the performance without any of the mortification Dean himself felt, and Dean found himself silently re-evaluating what his brother was into.  Either Dean was getting more conservative in his old age, or Sammy had a few hidden secrets that he’d managed to keep from Dean.

 

“They’re, uh,” Dean cleared his throat, wondering why it was so dry, “you don’t think they’re gonna make us do something like that, are you?”

 

Sam huffed out a quiet laugh.  “You know damn well neither one of us are flexible enough to do half of that.”

 

Okay, fine.  Sam had him there.


	7. Chapter Six

**CHAPTER SIX**

 

Torie, the senior business partner, wore an immaculate pinstripe suit, with a pressed white shirt and a green tie.  The tie itself had a sparkly diamond clip, and Sam felt pretty sure that every single piece of the outfit was chosen for the sole purpose of making him look like a caricature of a mafia boss.  The man himself was nondescript, with dark brown hair and eyes, and an older face with good humor in its lines.

 

Howard, by contrast, was almost a slob.  He wore worn jeans that fit him well, and a long sleeved shirt in a green that matched Torie’s tie.  Though everything was clean and neat, the almost aggressive contrast between casual and dressy made the men quite a striking pair.  Howard was quite a few years younger than Torie, and had a face that could have been carved from marble. He was the kind of good-looking that had always intimidated Sam, and he found himself almost unable to look Howard in the eye.

 

“Welcome in, gentlemen,” Torie said, and gestured at the front row of seats in the theatre.  Neither Torie nor Howard were taller than Dean, but if Sam and Dean sat, the two circus owners would have the height advantage.

 

Feeling a little defiant, Sam sat, letting his recognition of the tactic boost his courage.  Dean was loose-limbed and relaxed-looking, and easily sank into the seat next to Sam’s. Sam was silently grateful that Dean didn’t get intimidated as easily as he did, but was also envious.

 

Torie and Howard leaned against the stage, shoulder to shoulder, and Sam wondered at the lack of personal space between them.  That curiosity soon found an answer, as Howard took Torie’s hand and held it.

 

“We’ve invited you here to give you a rundown of what to expect in the coming weeks,” Howard continued where Torie had left off.  “We only perform during the cooler months of the year, since people need something to spice up their lives in all this winter--”

 

Neither Sam nor Dean laughed at the joke, but Howard didn’t seem to need them to be amused.

 

“--and you’ll be with us for the next few months, unless something comes up,” Torie finished smoothly.  “Our next performance will be in Washington, in the Seattle area.”

 

“Oh, hey, I know a guy up there,” Dean piped up, sounding calm and collected.  “His name’s Jonathan _Christo_ -fori.  Either of you met him before?  He’s a great dancer.”

 

Sam silently applauded Dean’s creativity at slipping the “Christo” so casually into the conversation.  Neither Torie or Howard’s eyes flickered, so Sam found himself relaxing a bit more into his seat.

 

“Never met him, but tell him to audition,” Howard suggested.  “We’re always looking for new talent to tour with.”

 

“Now, here are the particulars--” Torie said, and Sam let Torie’s voice wash over him, as he and Dean busily took notes on what to expect.  Dean, to Sam’s surprise, was going to get his first act in town done almost immediately, on opening night ( _“we like throwing the fresh meat out into the open as fast as possible, just to make sure that people know what to come back for”_ ), and Sam would be the following night.

 

They apparently wanted Sam to be rested, and Sam could only expect that the show-owners were going to put his strength to the test in any performance he’d have.

 

Howard took over the financial part of the explanation, saying that the performers were given a stipend for food and hotel expenses ( _“we don’t have generosity to abuse, and the money you’re getting, unless you can prove there’s nothing in a good price range, is all you’ll get, so be careful with it”_ ), and that they’d expect everyone to gather together at least once a day, to check in, hammer out what was okay during the acts and what wasn’t, and generally to pass on any information or advertising they might have aquired.  

 

Sam definitely approved of the proceedings, but by the time the owners were done talking, Sam felt like curling into a ball and taking a nap.

 

“We generally travel in a caravan,” Torie said, and Sam tried to keep himself looking attentive.  “We’ll try to be in Seattle at the same time, and find hotels close to each other, if we can’t all get into one.  Remember, anything your coworker says isn’t okay, _you don’t do._  Is that understood?”

 

“Crystal clear,” Sam stated.

 

“Naturally,” Dean agreed.

 

“Good,” said Howard.  Sam couldn’t help but be impressed at how seamlessly Torie and Howard spoke, each one taking up the others’ thoughts, almost like they were mentally connected.

 

“We head out tomorrow morning.”

 

“Oh?”  Dean asked.

 

“Yes, tomorrow,” sighed Torie.  “We were supposed to leave this morning, but it’s not like it’s a hardship, since we found you two, and our other recruits.  It’s a worthwhile delay.”

 

“Dismissed for now,” Howard ordered.  “Be ready to drive out around eight in the morning.  Doesn’t matter who takes lead, but we’re going to make as much distance as possible.”

 

Sam and Dean nodded, shook hands, and headed back to their hotel.  The drive back was quiet.

 

“Kind of weird to leave tomorrow,” Sam said finally, breaking the silence as they pulled into the parking lot.  

 

“Makes a weird kind of sense,” Dean disagreed, getting out of the Impala.  Sam followed, waiting patiently for Dean’s reasoning.

 

“They finished up last night, so everyone who worked that show’s going to be tired,” Dean continued, as they walked back to the room.  “This gives them the chance to rest up, wash clothes, and do all the stuff they might not have gotten to while they were performing.”

 

Sam conceded the point wordlessly, but he was thinking about last night’s performance.

 

The two men dancing with the ribbons had been incredible, and Sam had been overawed.  He’d noticed Dean blushing and looking down a few times, and had found himself resisting the urge to call Dean a prude.  Sam had seen _far_ raunchier performances out of drunk frat boys than the subtle and beautiful dancing those two men had done.

 

Sam had met his match in the next part of the show.  A stunningly beautiful woman, corded with muscles, came onto the stage, and Sam was shocked to recognize Emily, from the ticket stand.  She had donned a red, braided wig that swung just above her tailbone, and a chainmail bikini. She carried a sword in one hand, and a staff in the other.

 

The music had changed to a medieval score, and Emily had moved around the stage, her body gleaming with a faint application of oil.  Tame enough...until she turned to the audience, winked, and licked the sword. The implication was obvious.

 

She had eventually abandoned the sword and her playful act of faux-fellatio, only to take the staff and run it teasingly between her legs, the way a witch from a television show would ride a broom.  Sam found himself getting a little hot under the collar from what she was doing, but again, it wasn’t straight up erotic or overwhelmingly sensual.

 

Then, to the stunned silence of everyone in the room, she had raised a leg straight up, brought one end of the staff between her legs (the trailing end of her cloth-and-chainmail bikini bottom hiding her from full sight), and sank onto it.

 

Her performance had shocked _everyone._

 

Dean’s hands were probably still sore, from the way he had enthusiastically applauded her.

 

The final act of the evening had been, to Sam’s surprise, Kyle himself, wielding what Sam recognized as poi balls.  Someone in the auditions had used them decently well, but Kyle was obviously an expert, whirling around and making the balls dance in the air.  The glittery oil that covered Kyle drew attention to his corded forearms and toned biceps, and Sam had to admire his theatricality.

 

Until Kyle had lit them on fire, to shocked gasps.  It wasn’t long from then that Kyle had shown the audience that the oil that covered him made him partially fire-retardant, as he allowed one of the fiery balls to skim along his body.  Small licks of flame danced on his skin, not doing any real harm, if Kyle’s serene face was any indication, but turning Kyle from the goofy guy Sam had _thought_ he was, to a confident, sensual man who literally flirted with fire.

 

Thinking about their situation now, what worried Sam wasn’t necessarily the idea of performing until they figured out who the demon was.  It was performing _well enough_.

  
  


 

_Seattle, Washington, United States_

_Population: 704,352 (as of 2016)_

 

Dean didn't see the point of this particular striptease.  Kyle and Emily had seemed really excited to have him do this, and had even helped him plan it.  He even knew that it would go over well with the crowd. He knew the traveling show catered to people with particular tastes, but this one didn't seem as, well, sexy as it could have.

 

Still, give the public what they wanted, he guessed, even if it didn’t turn his crank.

 

He walked out on stage, the spotlight immediately blinding him to the audience.  He could hear the roar of the crowd, along with some appreciative whistles and cheers. He ignored them as best he could, and resisted the urge to hide his crotch.  The tight black boxers barely let him have his modesty, and someone with good sight probably could easily see the outline of his dick, snugly held within the almost-sheer fabric.

 

Emily, that sneaky, flexible bitch, had probably had that in mind when she gave him this pair.  “I think they’d look good on you,” she’d said innocently. Should have known it was an act.

 

The boxers, some eye makeup (“to make them pop,” Emily had said), and swirls of dark body paint imbued with glitter were the only things he wore.  They covered his his shoulders and his abs, following the curve of his muscles in sinuous curls, and he almost wished he wanted more tattoos than the protective sigil, because they were fucking gorgeous.

 

He held the stick against his neck as the music started to play.  "America the Beautiful" definitely wasn't his idea of a sexy song either, but again, the public, wants, blah blah blah.

 

Dean dragged his tongue along the stick, which was the length of his forearm, sanded smooth so he wouldn't hurt himself.  The crowd-sounds got even louder, if possible, but he was thankful he couldn't see anyone. Dean had never thought of himself as shy, but this many people staring at him would make even the boldest person a little nervous.

 

Another spotlight shown down from the ceiling of the tent.  A giant piñata, orange and rounded, dropped into the other light.  It had a few wisps of blondish hair on its giant, malformed head, and as it swung around, presented him with a view of a gaping hole in its ass.

 

A sudden change in the music became audible.  Dean could hear some heavy bass mixing in with the a cappella singing of the song, and with an grin, he started swinging the stick at the piñata in time with the beat.

 

People, whatever they want, yeah.

 

Dean let all the frustration he’d been feeling out through his arm swinging the stick.  His first few strikes practically tore the piñata apart, but he tried to time it for the end of the song.

 

The contents of the piñata spilled out from the broken shell of the orange paper-mache monster, and Dean was a little surprised to see condoms and lube packets.  Circum Erotico didn’t do anything by halves.

 

He took a few handfuls of the piñata’s guts and threw them into the audience, to some excited screams.  He heard scrambling as people went for anything that landed on the floor. Dean didn’t know how make a graceful exit, but decided to lick the stick again (more excited screams; he guessed he did something right), and then move off stage with his best sassy walk.

 

The drive to Seattle had been uneventful, but Dean was frustrated, even after beating the shit out of the piñata, because they hadn’t really gotten any closer to figuring out which member of the circus was actually the demon.  He’d passed on the story of his buddy, Christofori, who lived here, and nothing flickered, gave off sulphur, or showed any indication that demonkind was here.

 

Kyle still hung on Dean’s every word, and Dean was slowly doing his best to discourage the romantic attention.  Both Sam and Dean had become friends with a person named Jason, a disturbingly pretty man who dressed as a clown and attempted autofellatio on stage.  In full makeup, Dean found him weirdly attractive, to the point where he’d had to sneak off in the middle of the night a few times, and he’d also caught Sam giving the guy once-overs.

 

Emily was the only woman in the troop.  She seemed to have a never-ending supply of wigs, and Dean wasn’t sure what her regular hair color was.  She’d laughingly explained her act to Dean one night, during a stopover on their drive to Seattle. “Chill, dude,” she’d laughed at him, when he’d taken one look at her and blushed (though he would _die_ denying any such thing had happened).  “Not only is the bar a telescoping bar, but it never even goes near my vag.  Can you _imagine_ how much that would hurt, otherwise?”

 

Dean hadn’t had a response to that.

 

Torie and Howard rarely went anywhere without the other, and were very discreet about their affection for each other.  Dean, by virtue of being sneaky, had seen them kissing outside a few times, but nothing more than that. They seemed happy together, and that was all Dean cared about.  

 

The two new guys, Grant and Chris, were decent.  They were nineteen and twenty, respectively, and had both been at the audition where Sam and Dean had been hired on.  Both excelled in dance. Dean got along best with Chris, who hadn’t seen an engine he couldn’t take apart and rebuild, and they had bonded over the Impala’s stock engine.  Grant and Chris were cousins out of Provo, and hadn’t wanted to stay there, particularly as people made fun of them for their love of dancing.

 

“They called us names,” Grant had said, the night before they’d made Seattle.  Dean didn’t bother asking who “they” were; it was probably the same the world over, and he didn’t have the time to go to Provo and teach the assholes a lesson in tolerance.  “Like dancing was weak, or girly, or something.”

 

“The male ballet dancers I’ve seen do workouts that would make grown men cry,” Sam had said, exchanging a glance with Dean.  Dean saw that Sam had had the same thought as him. “Nothing weak about you. You can do stuff I can’t.”

 

“Tell me your routine, man,” Chris had begged.  “I just can’t seem to get the weight put on enough to bulk up, like you did!”

 

“First of all, you have to finish growing,” Sam had laughed, and the conversation had flowed naturally from there.

 

About all Dean could guarantee was, by process of elimination, neither Chris nor Grant had been the ones to do the murders.  They’d only joined the troop in Utah, and there hadn’t been any more dead bodies with the signature paint pentagram.

 

Dean and Sam had found out a little more about how the troop operated their shows.  Circum Erotico never had a program, because they rotated who performed on their shows.   Everyone who _wasn’t_ performing at night was expected to help with the backstage stuff.  They didn’t travel with crew, but kept to themselves and rarely hired temporary help.

 

According to Emily, everyone on the crew except for Sam, Dean, Grant, and Chris were the core group of people who had been with Circum Erotico since its inception.  They sometimes auditioned for additional people, like they had in Salt Lake City, but no one had decided to stick around for longer than a year or two.

 

Emily _did_ point out they still got letters and help from everyone who had left the troop, but for one reason or another, hadn’t stayed on or worked out.  Dean figured it was something like what happened with senior hunters. Older hunters never really left the hunting life, but often helped out by creating a hunter network, or stockpiling research materials that would otherwise have been destroyed, or even cluing younger hunters in to situations they could solve.  

 

Dean remembered that Emily had seemed a bit confused about the idea of leaving the troop, and figured that she had some kind of story behind why she she was so loyal.  Dean wouldn’t push for it, though. Let her tell it in her own time.

 

Kyle was hard for Dean to talk to, and not only because the guy seemed intent on hanging on every word Dean said.  Kyle was the kind of enthusiastic puppy-type guy that Sam had been as a teenager (when he hadn’t been butting heads with their dad), and Dean hadn’t dealt with _Sam_ too well at that stage of his life.  After the first time Kyle had gotten Dean alone, Dean made damn sure that Sam was with him every time after.  

 

Dean wiped the sweat and some of the glittery body paint off himself backstage, using a towel thoughtfully given to him by Emily.  Emily grinned at him and gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder.

 

“I knew that routine would be perfect for you,” she gushed.  “Great first performance! I hope the nerves weren’t too much.”

 

“It helped that I couldn’t see anything beyond the lights,” Dean admitted.

 

“That’s what they’re there for,” she said with a grin.  “I’d never be able to perform if I could see everyone looking at me like they wanted to fuck me.”

 

Dean shook his head a little and rolled his shoulders.  “Well, great, thanks. Now that’ll be all I think about the next time I’m on stage.”

 

She just laughed at him and sauntered off.  Dean looked after her appreciably, and thought it was a damn shame that she had absolutely no sexual interest in him.  She hadn’t said it _explicitly,_ but Dean prided himself, these days, on being observant to a lady’s wants and needs.  He wasn’t the teenage self who thought that every girl wanted a piece of him anymore, for damn sure.

 

Emily, he’d observed, gave absolutely _no one_ the sex eyes.  Ever. Not one guy, gal, or nonbinary pal turned her head.  Dean figured it could be a case of Emily not wanting to shit where she ate, to put it crudely, but considering her act was the only truly solo one, and she didn’t actually _do_ anything sexual (that wasn’t simulated), Dean thought it was likelier that she just didn’t want to have sex with anyone.  More power to her, Dean figured.

 

Dean and Sam weren’t expected to help out tonight, since they was still new and learning the ropes, so Dean wished everyone helping backstage a good night, got dressed, and headed back to the hotel.

 

The first thing Dean saw upon his  return to the hotel room was Sam, wearing his pajamas, lying in bed and reading.

 

“Don’t you look comfortable,” Dean mock-growled, peeling off his jacket and heading to the bathroom.

 

“Sure am,” Sam sighed, without looking up from the paperwork.

 

Not bothering to close the bathroom door, Dean stripped and turned on the shower, getting in to quickly wash the rest of the glitter paint (which he liked a _lot_ more than body oil) off himself.

 

A few minutes later, Dean was cleaned off, refreshed, and feeling a little less exposed to the world.  All he hoped was that there wasn’t anyone from the hunter community in the audience when he performed, because he just _knew_ he’d never hear the end of it otherwise.

 

“Loved the livestream of the show,” Sam said as soon as Dean got out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist.

 

Dean stumbled on air, feeling shocked.  “Excuse me?”

 

Sam looked up and said, slowly, “the livestream of your show was good.”

 

Dean stared, then flopped onto his bed.  The towel nearly came undone, but Sam could go blind staring at his junk, for all he cared.  “Fuck my _life.”_

 

“The lights were so bright it was hard to make out your face.”  Sam shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. There weren’t that many views while I was watching.”

 

“The piñata was more fun than it should have been,” Dean admitted, getting up from the bed to find some clothes.  He pulled on boxers, long shorts and a black t-shirt, and flopped right back onto his bed.

 

“I still don’t know who could have done all this,” Sam said after a minute of silence.  “I’ve been going over all the victims, all the places they were murdered, and this circus is still the only connecting point--”

 

“--and even better, unless someone’s not saying something, they weren’t even all there on the same nights,” Dean finished for him, putting an arm over his face.  “They didn’t livestream the other locations, did they?”

 

“No,” Sam answered with a sigh.  “They unveiled it here. First time.”

 

“Let’s hope it doesn’t catch on.”  Dean turned on his side, in order to face Sam.  “Did you find anything else interesting?”

 

“Yes and no,” Sam hesitantly stated.  “I think we’re on the wrong track.”

 

“Um, what?”

 

“No, Dean, hear me out,” Sam begged.  “You _know_ I’d probably be able to feel if it was demon activity, right?”

 

Dean suddenly felt even more uncomfortable than he had when he’d been on stage.  Not trusting his voice, he nodded.

 

“Look,” Sam began, also turning a little onto his side.  “We saw the sulphur, the rooms were wiped clean, and every crime scene definitely looked demonic, right?”

 

Dean nodded again.

 

Sam brandished two photos, held between the pinched fingers of his right hand.  One was of a murder victim from Arizona, and the other one from Salt Lake City.

 

“What’s the problem here?”

 

Dean looked closely at the photos, not seeing what Sam was referring to, when it suddenly hit him.

 

“They’re too clean,” Dean gasped.

 

“ _Exactly_ ,” Sam said triumphantly, throwing the photos back down.  “Every fucking scene is _too fucking clean!_  Why the fuck would a demon bother cleaning up after themselves?  They don’t give a fuck about their meatsuits!”

 

“The demons,” Dean reasoned, feeling more and more like an idiot, “would probably even be _happy_ to have their meatsuits get a criminal record, then get shot up, knowing that the human in there would have to let them stay if they wanted to live.  It’s just another form of torture to them, after all--”

 

“--and the only logical conclusion now,” Sam said grimly, “is that we’re actually looking for a human.”


	8. Chapter Seven

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 

Sam completely agreed with Dean about hating humans.  Demon motives were easier to guess, since they were unapologetically evil.  Humans had a _choice,_ and Sam really couldn’t understand the ones that just chose to be horrible to others.  There was enough shit in the world without people adding to it.

 

On the other hand, looking for a human meant they had to watch everyone in Circum Erotico for unexplained absences.  It was actually a little harder looking for a human murderer than a demon. Humans had motives, and so far, neither Sam nor Dean had had any idea what the motivation for the murders actually _were._  It clearly wasn’t attendance at Circum Erotico, because the body count would have been much higher if it was.

 

The missing pieces taunted Sam, and followed him into his performance the next night.  Sam, wearing a traditional strongman outfit, was performing with Grant (the others had all decided that anyone related to each other would _not_ be sharing performances), and was holding Grant up as Grant twisted and turned into positions Sam thought were beautiful, but impossible.

 

Of course, Grant was about fifty pounds lighter and five inches shorter than Sam, so he had that going for him.  Sam’s flexibility only went to the point where he could improve his powerlifting and prevent muscle soreness.

 

Sam turned around, trying to look as imposing as possible, as Grant balanced, perfectly posed, on one pointed foot on the ground, as he held the other one in a split behind his head.  Sam’s hands were securely holding Grant’s hips, and Sam was a little intimidated at the muscle mass he could feel with his fingers.

 

Grant may have wanted to know Sam’s workout routine, but Sam personally didn’t feel that Grant needed any help making his legs more buff.

 

“You okay if we start getting a little sexy?” Sam asked in Grant’s ear, making it look like he was trailing lips against his skin.

 

“Yep, go ahead, but stay above the waist,” Grant muttered back, bringing his leg down, only to wrap it around Sam’s waist.  Without any further ado, Grant dipped himself back, relying on his leg’s grip around Sam to keep himself upright.

 

For his part, though it embarrassed the shit out of him, Sam did his best to pretend that he was feeling Grant up, running fingertips down Grant’s bare chest (Sam tried not to notice that Grant’s nipples perked up when Sam went near them).  Grant, in return, danced with Sam, grasping Sam’s wrists and extending his arms. When Grant’s hands slid along Sam’s arms, Sam’s next expression of (hopefully) artistic pleasure wasn’t _entirely_ faked.

 

When the music concluded, Sam had Grant’s legs around his waist, Grant’s arms around his neck, and Grant’s arched neck in front of his mouth.  Sam figured Grant _did_ say that anything above the waist was game, so he bared his teeth and pretended to bite down over Grant’s throat.

 

The audience went wild, and once Grant slid down Sam’s body (and Sam was steadfastly ignoring how his dick was saying a very confused, partial hello during the whole process), underwear started landing near where they stood.  Boxers, briefs, panties, and thongs hit the stage in a slinky-looking pile, and Sam could only hope that they hadn’t been worn.

 

Sam took a bow, then beat a hasty retreat, pulling down the bottom portion of the strongman outfit that Jason had insisted Sam borrow for the performance.  “They’re gonna make your ass look good enough to eat,” Jason had said, with a wink.

 

Sam now wondered if the bottom part of the outfit, which had been stealthily climbing up him for the entire dance, was eating _him_ instead.

 

“That was fun, but you were distracted,” Grant pointed out, once he was also backstage.  Sweat glistened off his body, and Sam wondered why teenagers were so much more _built_ than they were when he was their age.  God, he was such an old fogey.

 

“Yeah, sorry,” Sam said, rubbing a hand through his hair.  Jason, after pushing the outfit onto him, had also insisted on having Sam’s hair look like he’d just gotten done fucking.  Sam winced as he encountered a knot. “I was nervous.”

 

“Wanna talk about it?” Grant invited.

 

“Not sure it’s something I _can_ talk about,” Sam replied, truthfully enough.  “I mean, I don’t know how strong your stomach is.”

 

“I’ve seen a little bit,” was all Grant said, which made Sam resolve to edit his words even more than he already would.

 

Sam sighed a bit, gesturing for Grant to follow him further backstage, to where they’d left their clothes.  While the music was pretty loud, and Sam was sure their voices wouldn’t carry, he didn’t want to distract Jason from his job managing the backstage lights, or Emily from making sure all the props were in order.

 

Once they were in the green room, where they’d stashed their stuff, Sam said, “I’ve been reading the papers, and I got caught up in that serial killer case.”

 

“Oh, damn,” Grant breathed.  “You mean the guy who killed those people in Salt Lake?”

 

“Yeah,” Sam admitted, deciding to mix in a bit of truth with his lies.  “It’s really weird. I don’t normally get affected by stories like that, and I found out about it all earlier today.”

 

“Ugh, that does suck,” Grant said, pulling on his shirt.  Apparently Grant didn’t give a crap about glitter in his clothes, Sam noted, with some amusement.

 

“I hope I wasn’t too bad during our performance,” Sam said, looking down at his hands, which were clasped in front of him.

 

“Nah, you were great, and we were great!”  Grant smiled at him, and Sam could only be grateful that there didn’t seem to be any awkwardness between them.  Having to act sexy with each other, then go back to being friends offstage, was a little weird for Sam’s headspace.  Then again, kids these days (and Sam could _feel_ himself becoming an old geezer, just at that thought) seemed to be more comfortable being open and affectionate with each other.

 

“But I can definitely see why you were disturbed at the murders, aside from them being, y’know, _murders,_ ” Grant continued.  “It’s not every day you see so many prominent church personalities murdered like that.”

 

Sam blinked.  Blinked again.  “I’m sorry, what?”

 

“Church personalities,” Grant said again, sliding his pants on, then wiping some of the glitter off on the legs.  “The people who got killed were pretty prominent in Utah for stuff like supporting the Temple on its stances about women and gay people, and often spoke about how people needed to conform more to how things were in the time of our Prophet.”

 

“Huh,” Sam said eloquently.

 

“Yeah, I guess people outside of Utah wouldn’t know much about them,” Grant said with a shrug and a glance at Sam.  Belatedly, Sam started getting dressed. He hadn’t noticed he was feeling cold.

 

“Could you tell me more about these...personalities?” Sam asked.

 

“Sure,” Grant said, “though I’m not sure _why_ you’d want to know more about them.  They were assholes. They kept preaching all this bullshit hate and making it sound like being a racist, bigoted asshole was the way to make sure God loved people.”

 

Sam, after pulling on his pants, didn’t even bother to zip them, but sank onto one of the chairs in the room.  “They didn’t all attend the same church, did they?”

 

“They’d probably have done the serial killer’s work for them if they did,” Grant said, making Sam bark out a laugh at the unexpected gallows humor.  “Nah, they couldn’t stand each other. Thankfully, none of them ever made the national news, like that Osteen guy, or we’d really have been fucked.”

 

“So they were hateful preachers?” Sam asked, almost to himself, but Grant heard him.

 

“Yeah, but like I said, they weren’t that well known outside of Utah.  One of them, Jake Levison, even showed up at my high school to make sure that all the guys were doing so-called ‘manly” stuff.  It’s one of the reasons Chris and I got bullied so much.” Grant sighed, and sat down also, putting his head into his hand.. “Truthfully, between us?  I’m glad that guy’s dead, specifically. He made things so much worse for us in school. It’s why we couldn’t want to get out, even though our families wanted us to stay, at least long enough to go to college.”

 

“They do a lot of good distance-learning programs,” Sam said, almost replying on automatic.  He had to tell Dean. This was the connection they’d needed. They had to research the people who died to find out if this was what they had in common.

 

“Already enrolled and will be starting in a month,” Grant declared.  “Not sure what I want to major in yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

 

Sam shook himself out of his fugue a little, and smiled, _really_ smiled, at Grant.  “Yeah, Grant,” he said softly.  “I think you will.”

 

 

Dean listened as Sam spelled it out, then sat back on the bed, letting his head thump the wall gently.  “That was right under our fucking noses.”

 

“We had no way of knowing,” Sam said gently.  Dean knew it was Sam’s way to try and minimize the effects of their stupidity, but Dean couldn’t let this go.  They’d _known_ that every single person on that list was a churchgoer.  It wasn’t that uncommon for people to go and worship publicly, then have their own private lives be private.

 

A connection _this big?_  Missing it made Dean feel like shit.

 

“Seriously, Dean,” Sam growled.  “Listen to me. Neither of us had thought to check and see if they were religious pundits.  We had _no way_ of knowing this!”

 

“I feel like shit for missing it,” Dean admitted.  “It was right there in the open--”

 

“--like how the killer is actually human, instead of a demon?”  Sam interjected, sounding wry. “Whoever’s going about killing these hateful excuses for religious people is also trying to make sure their deaths look like they’re connected to Satan.  That’s why the pentagrams and the sulphur. It sends a message to the people who listen, or listened, to them--”

 

“--that the message they’re following is wrong,” Dean finished.  “Damn, that’s actually clever.”

 

Sam looked down at his hands, a sign that meant Dean was about to hear something he didn’t like.  

 

“...do we have to stop this guy?” Sam asked, hesitantly.

 

Okay, that hadn’t been as bad as Dean was expecting.

 

“Sammy, if it were up to me, I’d quit this tour right now and let the person go about their business,” Dean admitted, which made Sam jump in surprise.

 

“Problem with that,” Dean continued, “is that it’s going to draw more attention, sooner or later, and someone is going to connect the same dots we did, and then what?”

 

Sam grimaced.

 

“Exactly.”  Dean sighed.  “We’re going to have to stop whoever’s doing this.  It sucks, because they’re murdering, which _is_ bad, but their choice of victims _isn’t._ ”

 

“Makes it hard for me to want to catch whoever’s doing this,” Sam said, with a helpless shrug.

 

Dean nodded.  “Fucking _humans,_ man.  They just have to ruin everything.”

 

Sam nodded, then laid down flat on his back.  “They’re choosing their victims by seeing which ones are guilty of hypocrisy,” he muttered.  “What a thing to do.”

 

“Yeah, those are some spot-on ways to find out who needs to die, or get exposed,” Dean, agreed.

 

Suddenly, Dean had a lightbulb moment, and nearly bounced himself off the bed.

 

“Sam,” he said breathlessly, “who chooses the next location?”

 

“What?”

 

“Who _chooses_ where to go _next,_ Sam?” Dean demanded.  “That’s the person who’s the murderer.  Why else would we not have a pattern, or tour dates that were confirmed long ahead of time?”

 

“Shit, Dean,” Sam gasped, “not only that, but among us, which one of us performs the least?  Who’s the person who doesn’t have to be here as often?”

 

Fucking _hell_ , Dean knew who it was, and the knowledge made him sick.

 

Silently, they both changed their clothes, hoping it wasn’t too late and the killer in Circum Erotico hadn’t gone out to perform a murder yet.

 

“I’m going to call the room,” Sam said, picking up the phone.  “There’s no need to make this more difficult than it has to be, right?”

 

“Maybe they’ll ‘come to Jesus,’ or whatever the term is for it,” Dean replied grimly.  “I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot. Go ahead.”

 

Sam dialed, and put the phone on speaker, so they’d both be able to hear it.  Ring, ring, ring, ring.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Yeah, hey, I just got done with my performance,” Sam said, sounding a little hesitant and tired.  Dean realized Sam was partially putting on an act. Sam got tired from hiking for two hours after he’d been lifting weights, not from half an hour of carrying around another person.

 

“I was wondering, would it be okay if Dean and I came over?”

 

“Yeah, sure!”  Dean heard honest enthusiasm in that response.  The sick feeling in his gut increased.

 

He didn’t want to do this.

 

“Okay, we’ll be there in a few minutes,” Sam cheerily stated.  “See you then!”

 

Sam thumbed the off button.  

 

Silence.

 

“We have to do this,” Sam reminded him.  “We may agree with it, but murder’s still wrong, no matter who does it.”

 

“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean sighed.  “Yeah. Let’s go to his room.”

 

Dean led the way.  Sam was the one who found the clue to crack the case open, so Dean took point.  It was the least he could do.

 

Their footsteps were louder than normal, Dean thought, or maybe it was because his heart was thundering in his ears.  He felt ill, the disgust and disappointment in his gut making him watch to retch. His hands shook a little before he clenched them into fists and jammed them into his jeans pockets.

 

It had to be done.

 

After a few minutes of walking, they came upon a door at the other end of the hallway.  Dean took a deep breath, then knocked twice.

 

The door opened, and Kyle’s cheerful face peeked out from behind the chain.

 

“Dude,” Dean sighed.  “You gonna let us in, or what?”

 

“Anything you want,” Kyle breathed, closing the door enough to get the chain off.  The slide-clack of it was loud in the otherwise quiet hotel. After a moment, the door opened wide enough to let Sam shoulder his way past Dean, inside the room.

 

Without discussing it, Dean followed Sam inside, and closed the door, putting his back against it so Kyle couldn’t escape.  He knew Sam would stand on Kyle’s other side, preventing him from doing something stupid, like run to the fire escape.

 

Kyle seemed to sense that something was off with them.  “Is everything okay? Did tonight’s show go well?”

 

“Yeah, Kyle,” Sam said, looking straight into Kyle’s eyes.  Strange. Dean hadn’t really noticed that Kyle was actually Sam’s height.  “The show went great. How was ticket-taking earlier?”

 

Dean’s eyes opened wide.  That hadn’t even occurred to Dean, that Kyle was also the one who most frequently sold tickets for the shows.  It was a whole other avenue of opportunity for Kyle to find his victims.

 

“Went easy, as always,” Kyle boasted, glancing over his shoulder at Dean.  Always flirting with him, Dean thought. Kinda flirty and shy in general, until he was on stage.  Dancing with fire, Dean remembered, looking confident and bold, secure in his ability. The opposite of the guy he was seeing right now.  Someone who could easily encourage someone to be interested in him, to want to be near him, or even to fuck him.

 

“A few of the guys slipped me phone numbers,” Kyle continued, winking at Dean.  “I think at least one of them wanted to sweep me off my feet!”

 

“No women this time?” Dean chuckled, but the laugh fell flat.  Kyle didn’t seem to notice.

 

“I may love everyone, Dean,” Kyle stated with a grin, “but if there’s one thing in life I know, not everyone loves _me._ ”  He sighed, letting his grin go a little theatrical.  “Not like I didn’t try. Plenty of hot ladies were in the audience tonight, but I guess it was stag night for me, in _all_ respects.”

 

Dean couldn’t keep going with the charade anymore, and judging by Sam’s slight foot-shuffle, neither could he.

 

“Kyle,” Dean sighed, “why did you kill them?”

 

It happened in stages, and Dean watched, fascinated, at Kyle gradually fell apart.  The straight back and confident shoulders slumped, and Kyle turned to put his back against the wall, slouching down until he was Dean’s height.  The twinkle in his eye disappeared, and he suddenly looked older, and tired.

 

Kyle was a ball of energy.  Dean had often thought, before they’d discovered Kyle was the one responsible for all the murders, that Kyle didn’t sleep, but plugged himself into a wall to recharge instead.  Kyle’s general attitude of butterflies and coffee had certainly helped that impression along.

 

“Fucking hypocrites,” Kyle hissed, and Dean was startled.  Even the voice that came out of Kyle no longer resembled the guy he’d thought he’d known.  It was rough and deep with bad beer and regret. “They preach their holier-than-thou bullshit, making people like _me_ terrified to come out at night, or be our best, most authentic selves, and then come to a show like Circum Erotico, which celebrates everything they claim to hate?”

 

The turmoil in Dean’s gut increased.  He _really_ didn’t want to do this.

 

“The first one was an accident,” Kyle said, almost in a sing-song manner.  “The guy wanted to fuck me, and I had recognized him as one of those types of people, someone who thought that Western medicine was a crock, and that people could heal themselves if they _just believed enough_.  His sermons had caused a few people to kill themselves because they’d followed his directions and stopped taking their medications.”

 

“Did he try and force you?” Sam asked gently, looking as sick as Dean felt.

 

“He _tried,_ ” Kyle said, letting out a laugh entirely without humor.  “Stupid fuck tripped and gutted himself on a plank of wood.  I watched him die.”

 

“And then?”  Dean prompted softly.

 

“I had to make sure that it sent a message,” Kyle continued, looking at the wall ahead of him.  His gaze was far away, Dean saw, probably seeing what had happened at the time. “There was tons of paint for the show, and at the time, we did have a mockery of a Carrie act, from Stephen King.  Plenty of red paint.”

 

Kyle laughed again, and looked between Sam and Dean, his eyes finally focusing.  “As for the sulphur, do you know they literally sell that by the pound, at almost any Walmart?”  He shook his head. “It was too easy, guys.”

 

Sam gestured at Kyle to continue.

 

“They all wanted me, so I let them think they had me.”  Kyle sighed, and slumped onto the floor. “One after the other, they all came to me, seeing something in me they wanted to possess.  I could have stopped after the second one, but then I thought, hey, this is sending a _message_ to people that these sanctimonious pricks aren’t any better than the shitheads who listen to their word-vomit.”

 

“So you made sure that you not only got to help choose the locations, but that you had enough time to really research the religious leaders in the area, and find out who’d likely come to the shows,” Dean finished for him.  “Honestly, that’s pretty brilliant.”

 

Sam glared at him.

 

“Well, it is, Sam,” Dean pointed out.  “Just because it’s wrong doesn’t mean that it wasn’t done with style.”

 

“What happens to me now?” Kyle asked, sounding like he was carrying the weight of the world.

 

“Kyle, you’re going to have to turn yourself in,” Sam said softly.  “We’re not cops, and we’re not going to arrest you, but we can’t keep letting you do this, either.”

 

“Why not?” Kyle asked, jutting his jaw forward.  “Short of beating the shit out of me and dragging me in, you can’t stop me, either.”

 

“This is all going to come down on Circum Erotico, if you don’t turn yourself in,” Dean said, in a flash of insight.  “The cops didn’t catch on yet, but it’s not going to take too much work to link up the fact that the circus has been in town for every single one of those murders.”

 

“If you don’t turn yourself in, Circum Erotico will be destroyed, since everyone’ll be arrested as accessories to murder,” Sam followed up.  “Do you really want that to happen?”

 

Kyle glanced between them, and started to cry silently, bowing his head.  After a few minutes, he mutely shook his head no.

 

“We’ll come with you,” Dean said.  “You won’t be alone until you don’t have a choice.  We promise.”

 

Kyle took a deep breath, then smiled a little sadly at Dean.  He raised an arm, which made Dean twitch, but all he did was lay a gentle hand on Dean’s cheek.

 

“I know I’m not alone,” Kyle sighed.  “Thank you.”

 

Sudden white light flared, and Dean gasped and dropped to the floor.  Fuck, Kyle had hit him in the throat, he was having trouble _breathing_ , where the fuck was Sam--

 

Another thud, a louder one, sounded next to him, and Dean turned to see, but he was dizzy, and couldn’t breathe, and the light was giving way to black spots.

 

He slumped down, unconscious, his last thought hoping Sam was okay.


	9. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

 

“--okay?  Hey, wake up!”

 

Consciousness returned slowly.  Sam’s head  _ hurt _ , his blood vessels thumping out agony in time with his heartbeat.

 

“I saw his eyelids move!”

 

God, the voice was  _ too loud. _

 

“Sammy, come on now, wake up!”

 

Dean.  Good, he was okay.  Kyle had really--

 

Sam shot up, realizing his mistake only when his vision wavered and the banging in his head increased unpleasantly.  He put his head into his hands, hoping that it would somehow make him feel less like he’d gotten choked out and knocked unconscious.

 

Even though he  _ had. _

 

“Kyle?”  He rasped, wondering how long he’d been out.  God, who the hell would have known Kyle could cold-cock  _ both _ Dean and Sam before they could react?  He’d given no indication he knew how to fight.

 

“He’s the one who told us you two had passed out,” the overly loud voice said.  Sam forced himself to focus, and realized that Emily was the one talking. 

 

“Kyle said he had a family emergency, and had to go as fast as he could, but he didn’t just want to leave you two on the ground,” Emily continued, “so he called me from the road.”

 

“That’s just too sweet of him,” Dean drawled sarcastically, sounding hoarse, and Sam felt a burst of worry.  He’d  _ seen _ Kyle take a shot at Dean’s throat, and holy  _ shit, _ Kyle could have killed Dean in one hit.

 

“That’s Kyle for you,” Emily sighed, and Sam finally turned his head to look at her.  She was sitting on the ground between them, looking worried, and despite the seriousness of the situation, Sam couldn’t help but want to smile when he saw that Dean’s head was on her lap.

 

“He’s never said much about his family, or why he wanted to be part of Circum Erotico, but he’s someone who wouldn’t do anything to hurt the show,” she said with a shrug.  “He had a contingency plan, in case he ever had to go away.”

 

Sam, with a sinking feeling that wasn’t being helped by the nausea that was starting to make itself known, realized that Kyle had been way more methodical about his serial killing than either Dean or Sam would have expected.

 

“Now I get to run the show,” Emily concluded, absently petting Dean’s head.  Dean didn’t look particularly happy about the situation, but he did look like the head pets were soothing him. 

 

“Kyle did a lot?” Sam rasped.

 

“Pretty much everything, from planning out the locations, getting things set up on Craigslist so people would come, and everything in between,” Emily murmured.  “He’d been mentoring me in how to do it for the past year, since he’s been with the circus longer than me.” She paused. “Or had been.”

 

“I didn’t even know he had a sick relative,” Dean said quietly.

 

“He was keeping it close to his chest, but all the regulars knew he has a lot of family members across the States with health issues,” Emily replied, helplessly shrugging.  “He said that he’d probably have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, and not to look for him if it happened. That he’d be okay, and would make sure the circus could go on without him.”

 

“I guess you’re gonna miss him, then,” Sam ventured, exchanging a look with Dean.

 

“Yeah, I am,” Emily admitted.  “We regulars have been together for years, like a family.  He was practically my brother.”

 

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Dean said slowly, closing his eyes with a grimace.  “Tell you what; Sam and I are probably going to stick around for a while, until the winter ends, because we signed that contract, but how about we go looking for him after?”

 

“If you could, I’d be really grateful,” Emily stated.  “A lot of us here, well, you’ll notice we don’t really talk much about where we came from, before.  It’s why I’m not going to try and find him; we have to respect his wishes, like the troupe respects everyone’s.  If he wanted to tell us what was going on, he would have. Anyone here would have listened.”

 

“Yeah, I get the feeling that people who join up here haven’t had the best pasts,” Sam offered, trying to keep his face pleasant.  “Makes sense he wouldn’t say anything if he couldn’t, or didn’t want to face it. Same with anyone else.”

 

Emily nodded, and wiped a tear from her eye.  “Now that you two are okay, I need to let everyone know Kyle’s gone.  Show has to go on and all that.”

 

Dean vacated her lap and sat up, and patted her shoulder to show his gratitude.  She gave him a watery smile, stood up, and left the hotel room, the door shutting behind her quietly.

 

“We’re never going to find that guy, are we,” Dean said, the lack of a question in his voice obvious.

 

“Probably not,” Sam answered anyway.  “Truthfully, I’m not even sure we should.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

There was a momentary silence.

 

“Kyle put on one hell of an act,” Dean said finally.

 

“Yeah,” Sam responded.

 

“Didn’t know he could fight like that.”

 

“Me neither.”

 

“All the world really is a stage, I guess.”

 

“Never would have pegged you for Shakespeare, Dean.”

 

“Lot you don’t know about me, Sammy.”

 

After another silence, Sam stood up, and offered a hand to help Dean, who accepted.  

 

“I don’t like what he’s doing,” Sam stated, feeling the wrench in his gut at the whole situation.

 

“So we’ll track him down,” Dean replied confidently.  “It’s what we do.”

 

“I guess it’ll be a hell of show when it happens,” Sam sighed.

 

“Bet on it, Sammy.  Bet on it.”

 

END


End file.
